UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

(Mark One)

☑ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024

or

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

From the transition period from to

Commission file number: 000-50633

CYTOKINETICS, INCORPORATED

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(650) 624-3000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☑

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

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☑ No ☐

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

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C.7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

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

The approximate aggregate market value of voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $5.6 billion as of June 28, 2024.(A)

(A) Excludes 13.7 million shares of common stock held by directors and executive officers, and any stockholders whose ownership exceeds ten percent of the shares outstanding, at June 28, 2024. Exclusion of shares held by any person should not be construed to indicate that such person possesses the power, directly or indirectly, to direct or cause the direction of the management or policies of the registrant, or that such person is controlled by or under common control with the registrant.

As of February 26, 2025, the number of shares outstanding of the Registrant’s common stock, par value $0.001 per share, was 118,410,689 shares.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

CYTOKINETICS, INCORPORATED

FORM 10-K

YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2024

INDEX

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Unless the context requires otherwise, references to “Cytokinetics,” “the Company,” “we,” “us” or “our” in this Form 10-K (defined below) refer to Cytokinetics, Incorporated and its subsidiaries. References to “Notes” in this Form 10-K are to the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements in this Form 10-K. We also have used other specific terms in this Form 10-K, most of which are explained or defined below:

This Form 10-K includes discussion of certain clinical studies relating to various in-line products and/or product candidates. These studies typically are part of a larger body of clinical data relating to such products or product candidates, and the discussion herein should be considered in the context of the larger body of data. In addition, clinical trial data are subject to differing interpretations, and, even when we view data as sufficient to support the safety and/or effectiveness of a product candidate or a new indication for an in-line product, regulatory authorities may not share our views and may require additional data or may deny approval altogether.

CYTOKINETICS and our C-shaped logo are registered trademarks of Cytokinetics in the U.S. and certain other countries. Other service marks, trademarks and trade names referred to in this report are the property of their respective owners.

The information contained on our website, our Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn pages or our Twitter accounts, or any third-party website, is not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements indicating expectations about future performance and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, Section 21E of the Exchange Act, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that involve risks and uncertainties. We intend that such statements be protected by the safe harbor created thereby. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and our actual results and the timing of events may differ significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements.

In addition, these forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties discussed in the “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in this document. Such statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which the statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict which factors will arise. In addition, we cannot assess the impact of each factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.

PART I

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

Overview

We are a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing first-in-class muscle activators and next-in-class muscle inhibitors as potential treatments for debilitating diseases in which muscle performance is compromised and/or declining. We have discovered and are developing muscle-directed investigational medicines that may potentially improve the healthspan of people with devastating cardiovascular and neuromuscular diseases of impaired muscle function. Our research and development activities relating to the biology of muscle function have evolved from our knowledge and expertise regarding the cytoskeleton, a complex biological infrastructure that plays a fundamental role within every human cell. As a leader in muscle biology and the mechanics of muscle performance, we are discovering and developing small molecule drug candidates specifically engineered to impact muscle function and contractility with objective to build a sustainable specialty biopharmaceutical business.

Our research continues to drive innovation and leadership in muscle biology. All of our drug candidates have arisen from our cytoskeletal research activities. Our focus on the biology of the cytoskeleton distinguishes us from other biopharmaceutical companies, and potentially positions us to identify or discover and develop and commercialize novel therapeutics that may be useful for the treatment of severe diseases and medical conditions. We intend to leverage our experience in muscle contractility to expand our current pipeline and expect to identify additional potential drug candidates that may be suitable for clinical development and commercialize.

Corporate Strategy

As a leader in muscle biology and the mechanics of muscle performance, we are developing small molecule drug candidates specifically engineered to impact muscle function and contractility. Our goal is to identify or discover, develop and commercialize novel drug products that modulate muscle function to improve patient healthspan, with the intent of establishing a fully-integrated specialty biopharmaceutical company.

In 2025, we articulated our five-year strategic plan, Vision 2030: “Empowering Muscle, Empowering Lives,” designed to enable Cytokinetics to become a leading muscle biology specialty biopharmaceutical company intent on meaningfully improving the lives of patients through global access to our innovative medicines.

The key components of our five-year corporate strategy are:

INNOVATION: Advance 2 product approvals across 3 indications and 10 novel molecular entities into our pipeline

Our myosin platform is the cornerstone of our innovation and the anchor of our portfolio of potential medicines is aficamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor that represents a next-in-class potential treatment for oHCM. Over the next five years, based on our comprehensive clinical development program, we believe we may achieve regulatory approvals in multiple geographies for aficamten in oHCM and nHCM; and omecamtiv mecarbil for the potential treatment of symptomatic heart failure with severely reduced ejection fraction. We also expect to advance two earlier stage new chemical entities in clinical development programs: CK-586 for the potential treatment of a subgroup of patients with symptomatic HFpEF with hypercontractility and ventricular hypertrophy and CK-089 with potential therapeutic application to a specific type of muscular dystrophy and other conditions of impaired muscle function. Furthermore, we are working to bring additional new chemical entities into clinical development through both continuing internal activities and by also externalizing innovation through partnerships, seeking complementary potential therapies to support our late-stage cardiovascular franchise and emerging neuromuscular pipeline.

IGNITION: Achieve broad access and rapid use of our medicines in 15 countries throughout North America and Europe

Given our focus on disease areas for which there are serious unmet medical needs, we direct our activities to potential commercial opportunities in concentrated and tractable customer segments, such as to disease-specific centers of excellence and cohorts of focused healthcare professionals, which may be addressed by smaller, targeted sales forces. In preparing for the potential commercialization of aficamten, we are building a marketing, sales and sales distribution infrastructure in the U.S. and have begun to build similar capabilities in Europe to support potential future approvals and commercialization. We are planning for our first potential commercial launch in the United States in 2025 as well as a potential European launch in Europe in 2026, firstly in Germany and will build our commercial functions in other key geographies in the EU 5 to support potential additional approvals. In addition, we expect to establish distribution partnerships in other areas of the world to drive global reach of our potential medicines. Given the next-in-class profile of aficamten, the anchor of our specialty cardiology franchise, we believe the attributes of the drug candidate, along with the safety and efficacy results from our comprehensive clinical development program, may enable commercial launches in our key geographies. Central to our commercialization strategy is ensuring a clear understanding and expertise in navigating the regulatory and payer landscape in each geography along with market research and advanced analytics to inform positioning, messaging and value proposition development.

IMPACT: Reach 100,000 patients globally with our medicines.

As we build our specialty cardiology franchise, we are committed to targeting disease areas of significant high unmet need in which there are either limited treatment options or in which the available treatments do not address the underlying disease. We believe there are hundreds of thousands of patients who may benefit from clinically meaningful outcomes, as measured by improvements in clinical, social and psychological aspects, including patients overall quality of life within their community of family, friends and caregivers. With our patient-centric initiatives, such as disease education programs and digital health technologies, we believe we can enhance disease and drug product awareness, product adherence, and patient outcomes.

INSPIRATION: Foster a patient-centric culture with emphasis on equitable access

We aspire to set the industry standard in patient centricity. We keep patients at the heart of every phase of development — research, clinical development, commercial readiness and more. By prioritizing systematic patient engagement throughout the organization, we foster a culture of empathy and collaboration, ensuring that the voice of the patient remains central to our decision-making process. In line with our patient-centric approach, we proactively seek to include patients from diverse populations in our clinical trials, representative of real-world experience, including a range of genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic status and backgrounds. As we prepare for the potential regulatory approval and commercial launch of our first medicine, we aspire to provide equitable access for all patients regardless of gender, ethnicity or zip code. As such, we are developing programs for patients and healthcare providers to facilitate the accessibility of our products to those in need. These programs may include support to help understand and navigate insurance coverage and obtain financial assistance for eligible patients; comprehensive patient and office education and resources to help navigate the patient’s treatment journey; support to manage logistical challenges that prevent patients from starting and staying on therapy and behavioral and wellness tools and resources to support patient engagement and help manage adherence to treatment.

INGENUITY: Extend leadership in muscle deploying multiple therapeutic modalities

After expanding our discovery platform to include muscle mechanics, muscle metabolism, and muscle health and regeneration, we now aim to expand our modality toolkit as may enable our programs to address more difficult-to-drug molecular targets. This diversification in modalities will allow us to interrogate areas adjacent to our expertise in small molecules, such as targeted protein degraders, oligonucleotides, and tissue targeting. With these additional modalities in our R&D armamentarium, we expect to have the opportunity to investigate disease causing targets that lack enzymatic activities, require near complete inhibition for clinical efficacy or have adverse effects in non-target tissues. We believe we can expand into new modalities through a combination of building internal expertise and capabilities and through external collaborations with industry partners and academic institutions.

Building a Specialty Cardiology Franchise

We believe we are well positioned to build a specialty cardiology franchise anchored by our later-stage development program for aficamten, complemented by earlier stage drug candidates that have arisen from our industry leading research and leadership in muscle biology and the mechanics of contractility. We anticipate that aficamten, the first product in our potential franchise will help serve unmet needs in the growing HCM market. If aficamten is approved and indicated for the treatment of patients with oHCM, it could be followed by a subsequent regulatory approval and indication for the treatment of patients with nHCM (assuming positive results from ACACIA-HCM). We further believe that our pioneering research directed to the same biology and emerging pharmacology could result in an expansion of our business franchise with the development and potential approval of CK-586 for the potential treatment of a subset of patients with HFpEF whose hypercontractility resembles that of patients with nHCM, as well as the development and potential approval of omecamtiv mecarbil, a cardiac myosin activator, for the potential treatment of patients with symptomatic heart failure with severely reduced ejection fraction.

Our planned specialty cardiology franchise is focused on the advancing of potential medicines that can address high unmet needs of patients primarily treated by a concentrated segment of cardiologists. Specifically, HCM is primarily diagnosed with initiation of treatment by approximately 10,000 cardiologists in the U.S., including in centers of excellence and targeted community settings. We aim to achieve similar, if not higher, return on investments relative to comparable biopharmaceutical companies with our relatively more limited sales and marketing infrastructure focused to key prescribers and with a specialty distribution model and more bespoke patient experience. We aim to achieve higher commercial returns from our specialty franchise business strategies as would be enabled by experienced sales representatives who bring established rapport with their potential customers and appropriately coupling their selling activities with high touch customer support services designed to benefit prescribers and patients alike.

Research and Development Programs

Our research and development activities related to muscle contractility include our cardiac muscle contractility programs and our skeletal muscle contractility programs. We also conduct research and development on novel treatments for disorders involving muscle function beyond muscle contractility.

Specialty Cardiology Programs

Our specialty cardiology program is focused on the cardiac sarcomere, the basic unit of muscle contraction in the heart. The cardiac sarcomere is a highly ordered cytoskeletal structure composed of cardiac myosin, actin and a set of regulatory proteins. Cardiac myosin is the cytoskeletal motor protein in the cardiac muscle cell. It is directly responsible for converting chemical energy into the mechanical force, resulting in cardiac muscle contraction. Our most advanced cardiac program is based on the hypothesis that inhibitors of cardiac myosin may attenuate the hyperdynamic contraction resulting from pathologic mutations in the sarcomere that lead to hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. A targeted oral therapy addressing this disease etiology may improve symptoms, function, exercise capacity and potentially slow disease progression.

We also have a late stage program based on the hypothesis that activators of cardiac myosin may target the underlying deficit of cardiac contractility in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and address certain adverse properties of existing positive inotropic agents. Our novel cardiac myosin activator works by a mechanism that directly stimulates the activity of the cardiac myosin motor protein, without increasing the intracellular calcium concentration. It accelerates the rate-limiting step of the myosin enzymatic cycle and shifts it in favor of the force-producing state. Rather than increasing the velocity of cardiac contraction, this mechanism instead lengthens the systolic ejection time, which results in increased cardiac function in a potentially more oxygen-efficient manner.

Our most advanced program is directed to the treatment of HCM. HCM is a disease in which the heart muscle (myocardium) becomes abnormally thick (hypertrophied). The thickening of cardiac muscle leads to the inside of the left ventricle becoming smaller and stiffer, and thus the ventricle becomes less able to relax and fill with blood. This ultimately limits the heart’s pumping function, resulting in symptoms including chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, or fainting during physical activity.

HCM is the most common monogenic inherited cardiovascular disorder, with approximately 280,000 patients diagnosed in the U.S. However, there are an estimated 400,000-800,000 additional patients who remain undiagnosed, a rate that is growing at the same rate as the population. Two-thirds of patients with HCM have oHCM, in which the thickening of the cardiac muscle leads to left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction, while one-third have nHCM, in which blood flow is not impacted, but the heart muscle is still thickened. HCM is fairly evenly split across gender and while patients are typically diagnosed in their early 40s, the average age of an oHCM patient is in the early 60s. People with HCM are at high risk of also developing cardiovascular complications including atrial fibrillation, stroke and mitral valve disease. People with HCM are at risk for potentially fatal ventricular arrhythmias and it is one of the leading causes of sudden cardiac death in younger people or athletes. A subset of patients with HCM are at high risk of progressive disease leading to dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure necessitating cardiac transplantation.

Aficamten

Aficamten is a novel, oral, small molecule cardiac myosin inhibitor that our scientists discovered for the treatment of HCM. Aficamten arose from an extensive chemical optimization program conducted with attention to therapeutic index and pharmacokinetic properties that may translate into next-in-class potential. Aficamten was designed to reduce the hypercontractility associated with HCM. In preclinical models, aficamten reduces myocardial contractility by binding directly to cardiac myosin at a distinct and selective allosteric binding site, thereby preventing myosin from entering a force producing state. Aficamten reduces the number of active actin-myosin cross bridges during each cardiac cycle and consequently reduces myocardial contractility. This mechanism of action may be therapeutically effective in conditions characterized by excessive hypercontractility, such as HCM. The preclinical pharmacokinetics of aficamten were characterized evaluated and optimized for potential rapid onset, ease of titration and rapid symptom relief.

FDA granted aficamten orphan drug designation for the treatment of symptomatic HCM.

The development program for aficamten assessed its potential as a treatment that improves exercise capacity and relieves symptoms in patients with oHCM, as well as its potential long-term effects on cardiac structure and function. Aficamten was evaluated in SEQUOIA-HCM, a positive pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with symptomatic oHCM.

The results from SEQUOIA-HCM met our high expectations for the trial, and are consistent with our target product profile that may enable aficamten to provide physicians and patients with an important alternative to currently available treatment options. The results from SEQUOIA-HCM showed that treatment with aficamten for 24 weeks significantly improved exercise capacity compared to placebo, increasing peak oxygen uptake (pVO2) by 1.8 ml/kg/min compared to baseline in patients treated with aficamten versus 0.0 ml/kg/min in patients treated with placebo (p=0.000002). This treatment effect was consistent across all pre-specified subgroups, including patients receiving beta blockers. Statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements were also observed in all 10 prespecified secondary endpoints, with functional and symptomatic improvements occurring within two weeks of initiating treatment with aficamten and sustained throughout the treatment period. Compared to baseline, at Week 24 patients treated with aficamten experienced significant improvements in post-Valsalva left ventricular outflow tract gradient with an LSM difference of -50 mmHg (p<0.0001) versus placebo. Aficamten also substantially reduced the burden of symptoms compared with placebo, with a significant improvement observed in Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire Clinical Summary Score (LSM difference = 7 points; p<0.0001) and with 34% of patients experiencing ≥1 class improvement in New York Heart Association Functional Class (p<0.0001). Treatment with aficamten substantially reduced the proportion of patients eligible for septal reduction therapy. Among those eligible for SRT at baseline, over the duration of 24 weeks of treatment, patients receiving aficamten spent 78 fewer days eligible for SRT compared with those treated with placebo (p<0.0001). Core echocardiographic LVEF was observed to be <50% in 5 patients (3.5%) on aficamten compared to 1 patient (0.7%) on placebo. There were no instances of worsening heart failure and no treatment interruptions due to low LVEF.

Following the positive results of SEQUOIA-HCM, we submitted an NDA for the treatment of oHCM. The FDA accepted and filed the NDA and assigned the NDA a standard review with a PDUFA target action date of September 26, 2025. Additionally, we submitted an MAA with the EMA which has validated the MAA for the treatment of oHCM. The MAA is now under review by the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use.

Aficamten is also currently being evaluated in MAPLE-HCM, a Phase 3 clinical trial of aficamten as monotherapy compared to metoprolol as monotherapy in patients with obstructive HCM; ACACIA-HCM, a Phase 3 clinical trial of aficamten in patients with non-obstructive HCM; CEDAR-HCM, a clinical trial of aficamten in a pediatric population with obstructive HCM; and FOREST-HCM, an open-label extension clinical study of aficamten in patients with HCM. In addition, a Phase 1 study of aficamten in healthy Japanese patients is being conducted.

Collaboration for Commercialization of Aficamten in Greater China

We are party to a license and collaboration agreement, pursuant to which we granted to Corxel an exclusive license to develop and commercialize aficamten in China and Taiwan. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Genzyme Corporation, an affiliate of Sanofi, acquired Corxel's rights to develop and commercialize aficamten in China and Taiwan.

The Center for Drug Evaluation of the National Medical Products Administration of the People’s Republic of China accepted with priority review the submission of the NDA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM.

Collaboration for Commercialization of Aficamten in Japan

On November 19, 2024, we announced that we had entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Bayer Consumer Care AG, an affiliate of Bayer AG, for the exclusive development and commercialization of aficamten in Japan, subject to certain reserved development rights of Cytokinetics to continue conducting ACACIA-HCM and CEDAR-HCM in Japan.

Royalty Pharma Revenue Interest

We are party to a revenue interest agreement with RPI ICAV, the RP Aficamten RPA, pursuant to which RPI ICAV purchased rights to certain revenue streams from net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten by us, our affiliates and our licensees. Pursuant to the terms of the RP Aficamten RPA, as amended, RPI ICAV is entitled to receive 4.5% of our worldwide annual net sales of aficamten up to $5.0 billion and 1% of our annual net sales of aficamten above $5.0 billion.

Omecamtiv mecarbil

We are developing omecamtiv mecarbil as a potential treatment across the continuum of care in heart failure both for use in the hospital setting and for use in the outpatient setting.

Omecamtiv mecarbil is a selective, small molecule cardiac myosin activator, the first of a novel class of myotropes designed to directly target the contractile mechanisms of the heart, binding to and recruiting more cardiac myosin heads to interact with actin during systole. Omecamtiv mecarbil is designed to increase the number of active actin-myosin cross bridges during each cardiac cycle and consequently augment the impaired contractility that is associated with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, or HFrEF.

GALACTIC-HF

GALACTIC-HF was a Phase 3 cardiovascular outcomes clinical trial of omecamtiv mecarbil which was conducted by Amgen in collaboration with Cytokinetics. The primary objective of this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter clinical trial was to determine if treatment with omecamtiv mecarbil when added to standard of care is superior to standard of care plus placebo in reducing the risk of cardiovascular death or heart failure events in patients with high risk chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction.

The results of GALACTIC-HF showed that after a median duration of follow-up of 21.8 months, the trial demonstrated a statistically significant effect of treatment with omecamtiv mecarbil to reduce risk of the primary composite endpoint of CV death or heart failure events (heart failure hospitalization and other urgent treatment for heart failure) compared to placebo in patients treated with standard of care. A first primary endpoint event occurred in 1,523 of 4,120 patients (37.0%) in the omecamtiv mecarbil group and in 1,607 of 4,112 patients (39.1%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.86, 0.99; p=0.025). This effect was observed without evidence of an increase in the overall rates of myocardial ischemic events, ventricular arrhythmias or death from cardiovascular or all causes.

COMET-HF Informed by Results from Patient Subgroup in GALACTIC-HF

Since our release of the primary results of GALACTIC-HF, we have conducted and announced supplemental and subgroup analyses suggesting that certain biologically plausible subgroups of patients treated with omecamtiv mecarbil in GALACTIC-HF may have benefited more than the general patient population in the trial. Based on these and other promising subgroup analyses from GALACTIC-HF and the high unmet need in patients with heart failure with severely reduced ejection fraction, we decided to continue the development program for omecamtiv mecarbil and to conduct a confirmatory study in a patient population similar to the approximately 4,000 prespecified subgroup of patients with an LVEF <28% in GALACTIC-HF. Accordingly, in the fourth quarter of 2024, we commenced patient enrollment in COMET-HF (Confirmation of Omecamtiv Mecarbil Efficacy Trial in Heart Failure), a Phase 3 multi-center, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to assess the efficacy and safety of omecamtiv mecarbil in patients with symptomatic HFrEF) with severely reduced ejection fraction. The primary endpoint of COMET-HF is the time to first event in the primary composite endpoint of cardiovascular death, first heart failure event, left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation or cardiac transplantation, or stroke. COMET-HF is expected to enroll approximately 1,800 patients randomized on a 1:1 basis to receive omecamtiv mecarbil or placebo for up to 48 weeks.

Collaboration for Commercialization of Omecamtiv Mecarbil in Greater China

We were party to a license and collaboration agreement under which we granted to Corxel an exclusive license to develop and commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil in China and Taiwan. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we terminated the license and collaboration agreement by mutual agreement with Corxel. Accordingly, all rights to develop and commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil in China and Taiwan have reverted to us. We do not intend to commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil in China or Taiwan ourselves and may seek a partner in the future to do so, subject to positive results from COMET-HF and market conditions.

Royalty Pharma Revenue Interest

In 2017, we entered into a Royalty Purchase Agreement, which we refer to as the RP OM RPA, with Royalty Pharma Development Funding, LLC, or RPFT, and amended the RP OM RPA on January 7, 2022. Pursuant to the RP OM RPA, as amended, RPFT has a revenue interest entitling it to up to 5.5% of our and our affiliates’ and licensees’ worldwide net sales of omecamtiv mecarbil.

In the second quarter of 2024, we entered into the RP OM Loan Agreement with RPDF. Pursuant to the RP OM Loan Agreement, RDPF has a revenue interest entitling it to quarterly payments in an amount equal to 2.0% of the annual worldwide net sales of omecamtiv mecarbil, subject to a minimum floor amount ranging from $5.0 million to $8.0 million during the first 18 calendar quarters commencing on the calendar quarter during which FDA approval for omecamtiv mecarbil is obtained, as further described in Note 3 to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the section "RP OM Loan Agreement," on condition that a new Phase 3 clinical trial of omecamtiv mecarbil is successful by June 30, 2028 and we receive the marketing approval from the FDA for omecamtiv mecarbil on or prior to December 31, 2029.

CK-586

CK-586 is a novel, selective, oral, small molecule cardiac myosin inhibitor designed to reduce the hypercontractility associated with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF. Approximately half of the estimated 6.7 million patients in the United States with heart failure have HFpEF, and the prevalence of HFpEF is increasing. A subset of HFpEF patients with hypercontractility, ventricular hypertrophy, elevated biomarkers and symptoms of heart failure may benefit from treatment with a cardiac sarcomere inhibitor. Approximately 75% of patients with HFpEF will die within five years of initial hospitalization, and 84% will be rehospitalized. Despite broad use of standard treatments and advances in care, the prognosis for patients with heart failure is poor.

In preclinical models, CK-586 reduced cardiac hypercontractility by decreasing the number of active myosin cross-bridges during cardiac contraction thereby reducing the contractile force, without effect on calcium transients. CK-586 selectively inhibits the ATPase of intact cardiac myosin but does not inhibit the ATPase of subfragment-1 of myosin (S1) as does aficamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor also developed by the Company. Unlike aficamten, the inhibitory effect of CK-586 requires the presence of the regulatory light chain (RLC) of myosin in the context of the intact myosin dimer (heavy meromyosin or HMM). In preclinical models, CK-586 reduced cardiac hypercontractility by decreasing the number of active myosin cross-bridges during cardiac contraction thereby reducing the contractile force, without effect on calcium transients. In engineered human HCM heart tissues, CK-586 demonstrated a shallow force-concentration response and improved lusitropy. Lending support for investigating this mechanism of action in HFpEF, a subset of patients with HFpEF resemble patients with non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in that those patients have higher ejection fractions, thickened walls of their heart, elevated biomarkers, and symptoms of heart failure. Data from a Phase 2 clinical trial of aficamten in patients with non-obstructive HCM show that aficamten was well tolerated, improved patient reported outcomes (Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) and New York Heart Association (NYHA) Functional Class) and biomarkers, measures that are also relevant to HFpEF.

Phase 1 Trial Results

We conducted a Phase 1 double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-part single and multiple ascending dose clinical study with the goal of evaluating the safety, tolerability and PK of CK-586 when administered orally as single or multiple doses to healthy participants. The primary objective of this Phase 1 double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled, single and multiple ascending dose clinical study was to evaluate the safety, tolerability and PK of CK-586 when administered orally to healthy participants. The study design included seven single ascending dose cohorts (10 mg to 600 mg) comprised of 10 participants each, and two multiple-dose cohorts (100 and 200 mg once daily) comprised of 10 participants each. This study data demonstrated that CK-586 was safe and well tolerated in healthy participants. No serious adverse events were observed and the stopping criteria for the study were not met. The half-life of CK-586 was observed to be in the range of 14 to 17 hours. CK-586 demonstrated dose-linearity without a change in half-life over a wide range of exposures, with a steady-state appearing evident within seven days of dosing. Left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular fractional shortening decreased from baseline in an exposure-dependent manner, and the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic relationship appeared shallow and predictable. At the highest single dose of 600 mg, the mean decrease in LVEF was <5%. These results demonstrate pharmacologic properties that may enable once-daily fixed-dose administration in the future.

AMBER-HFpEF

In the fourth quarter of 2024, we announced the design of AMBER-HFpEF (Assessment of CK-586 in a Multi-Center, Blinded Evaluation of Safety and Tolerability Results in HFpEF), a Phase 2 randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, multi-center, dose-finding clinical trial in patients with symptomatic HFpEF with left ventricular ejection fraction ≥ 60%. The primary objective is to evaluate the safety and tolerability profile of CK-586 compared to placebo. The secondary objectives include assessing the effect of CK-586 on LVEF and NT-proBNP, its pharmacokinetics, and its pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic relationship. AMBER-HFpEF is currently enrolling patients.

Royalty Pharma Revenue Interest

In the second quarter of 2024, we entered into a Revenue Participation Right Purchase agreement, which we refer to as the RP CK-586 RPA, with RPI ICAV, pursuant to which RPI ICAV purchased rights to certain revenue streams from worldwide net sales of CK-586 by us, our affiliates or licensees. Under the RP CK-586 RPA, in consideration of an up-front $50 million payment, RPI ICAV purchased a revenue interest entitling it to 1.0% of our annual worldwide net sales of CK-586. In addition, following the initiation of the first Phase 3 clinical trial (or the Phase 3 portion of the first Phase 2b/3 clinical trial) in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction in humans for CK-586, RPI ICAV, at its sole discretion, has the right to purchase an additional revenue interest which if exercised would entitle it to an additional 3.5% of our annual worldwide net sales of CK-586 in consideration of a payment equal to 50.0% of our future research and development costs of a Phase 3 trial of CK-586 up to a maximum of $150 million.

Neuromuscular Program

Our neuromuscular program is focused on the activation of the skeletal sarcomere, the basic unit of skeletal muscle contraction. The skeletal sarcomere is a highly ordered cytoskeletal structure composed of skeletal muscle myosin, actin, and a set of regulatory proteins, which include the troponins and tropomyosin. This program leverages our expertise developed in our ongoing discovery and development of cardiac sarcomere activator.

We believe that our skeletal sarcomere activators may lead to new therapeutic options for diseases and medical conditions associated with neuromuscular dysfunction and potentially also conditions associated with aging and muscle weakness and wasting. The clinical effects of muscle weakness and wasting, fatigue and loss of mobility can range from decreased quality of life to, in some instances, life-threatening complications. By directly improving skeletal muscle function, a small molecule activator of the skeletal sarcomere potentially could enhance functional performance and quality of life in patients suffering from diseases or medical conditions associated with skeletal muscle weakness or wasting.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, we announced that the first participants have been dosed in a Phase 1 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-part, single and multiple ascending dose clinical study of CK-089 in healthy human participants. CK-089 is a fast skeletal muscle troponin activator with potential therapeutic application to a specific type of muscular dystrophy and other conditions of impaired muscle function. The primary objective of this Phase 1 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-part single and multiple ascending dose clinical study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of CK-089 when administered orally as single or multiple doses to healthy participants. The study design includes single ascending dose cohorts and multiple-dose ascending cohorts comprised of 10 participants each. Our clinical development program for CK-089 is subject to a partial clinical hold from FDA that limits our ability to dose patients at doses anticipated to result in plasma exposures higher than certain levels, which may limit the ability of our Phase 1 trial to identify a therapeutic dose for CK-089.

Beyond Muscle Contractility

We developed preclinical expertise in the mechanics of skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle that extends from proteins to tissues to intact animal models. Our translational research in muscle contractility has enabled us to better understand the potential impact of small molecule compounds that increase cardiac or skeletal muscle contractility and to apply those findings to the further evaluation of our drug candidates in clinical populations. In addition to contractility, other major functions of muscle play a role in certain diseases that could benefit from novel mechanism treatments. Accordingly, our knowledge of muscle contractility may serve as an entry point to the discovery of novel treatments for disorders involving muscle functions other than muscle contractility. We are leveraging our current understandings of muscle biology to investigate new ways of modulating these other aspects of muscle function for other potential therapeutic applications.

Commercial Readiness

We began building our commercial capabilities in the U.S. prior to the potential FDA approval and launch of omecamtiv mecarbil, our cardiac myosin activator. Upon receipt of the complete response letter from FDA in response to our NDA for omecamtiv mecarbil, we maintained the infrastructure that had been built and further refined the team and activities in anticipation of what may now be our first commercial launch with aficamten, our cardiac myosin inhibitor, in the third quarter of 2025. We hired a number of headquarter positions inclusive of those experienced in HEOR, pricing, distribution, analytics, commercial operations, marketing, sales leadership as well as commercial strategies, systems, and operational execution. In addition, we have hired our field sales leadership team with substantial cardiovascular experience, as well our market access field team that includes people with deep experience working with the payer community. We plan to expand the team with customer-facing sales positions as we near potential FDA approval in 2025. Additionally, we established our field-based medical affairs team, inclusive of medical directors, medical education and medical communications functions, as well as medical science liaisons in key geographies across the U.S. In Europe, we filled key leadership positions in country leadership, medical affairs and market access and made meaningful progress in building the corporate infrastructure necessary to enable a commercial launch of aficamten as soon as 2026.

Our go-to-market approach for aficamten includes three phases; learn, design, and build. Based on our market research, we learned the overall journey to diagnosis is complex and challenging due to unique symptoms present in each patient along with limited disease awareness across the broader health care system, leading to confusion and complexity for patients and the healthcare professionals who treat them. HCM patients experience many complications, and, in addition to the physical impact, patients experience profound psychological effects that impact social involvement and other aspects of everyday life.

We are designing a comprehensive patient and HCP support program to help address patient needs to facilitate ease of transitioning to therapy with a cardiac myosin inhibitor. The program design includes reimbursement support, affordability programs and patient education resources to support the patient journey.

Market research has revealed some challenges that may have impacted the adoption and uptake of another cardiac myosin inhibitor related to its REMS program, including echo monitoring, pharmacy certification, drug-drug interactions, down titration challenges and overall REMS process complexity. We believe aficamten may have attributes that could impact differentiation, including time to onset and reversibility, predictable dose response, no clinically meaningful P450 liabilities resulting in REMS related drug-drug interaction monitoring and frequency of echo monitoring. In 2024, we also created a market development and education campaign, developed the field commercial training modules, engaged with payers with compliant, pre-approval information and continued planning to build out the necessary technologies to optimize customer engagement.

We recognize the critical importance of market access. We hired a seasoned account management team that covers over ~100 health care plans that represent greater than 90% of covered lives. The team has interacted with every major PBM in introducing our company. We maintain a strong commitment to health economics research, which is intended to facilitate our ability to effectively convey the value proposition of aficamten to a broad range of stakeholders. The two platforms that we expect to generate this value include the results of SEQUOIA-HCM and the clinical attributes of aficamten. Our customer-facing strategy and deployment has been informed by insights gathered from potential health care professional customers through market research, focus groups and advisory boards. This strategy and deployment, coupled with secondary data, patient diagnosis data, prescriptions and treatment data, has identified approximately 10,000 treaters, which represent an estimated ~75% of HCM cardiologist patient volume, enabling us to design an efficient and impactful customer-facing structure.

Manufacturing Resources and Product Supply

Our drug candidates require precise high-quality manufacturing that is compliant with good manufacturing processes (or foreign equivalent) and other applicable laws. We have no manufacturing capabilities and rely on third parties for the supply and sourcing of raw materials, the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients and the manufacture and packaging of finished drug products for both clinical trial materials and commercial supply.

In view of a potential commercial launch of aficamten, we have secured long-term commercial supply agreements with reputable contract manufacturers for the supply of finished drug product and active pharmaceutical ingredients respectively.

For our portfolio of small molecules, we continue to expand our network through well-established and reputable third-party contract manufacturers for our CMC and manufacturing needs that have good regulatory standing and suitable manufacturing capabilities and capacities. These third parties must comply with applicable regulatory requirements, including FDA’s cGMP, the E.U.’s Guidelines on Good Distribution Practice, as well as other stringent regulatory requirements enforced by the FDA or foreign regulatory agencies, as applicable, and are subject to routine inspections by such regulatory agencies. In addition, through our third-party contract manufacturers and data service providers, we continue to provide serialized commercial products as required to comply with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act. We monitor and evaluate the performance of our third-party contract manufacturers on an ongoing basis for compliance with these requirements and to affirm their continuing capabilities to meet both our commercial and clinical needs. We employ highly skilled personnel with both technical and manufacturing experience to diligently manage the activities at our third-party contract manufacturers and other supply chain partners, and our quality department audits them on a periodic basis.

We are mindful of the increasing risks of relying on sole source raw materials from countries where global trade disputes or restrictive legislation are possible. For example, we currently source a key registered starting material for aficamten from a manufacturer in China. Although we do not anticipate any immediate difficulties in procuring raw materials from China, we are actively seeking to establish alternative geographically diverse supply arrangements for this particular registered starting material and other raw materials and compounds.

Competition

There are many companies focused on the development of small molecules for the treatment HCM, HFrEF, HFpEF and other diseases that our drug candidates are intended to treat. Our competitors and potential competitors include major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academic research institutions, clinical reference laboratories and government agencies that are pursuing research activities similar to ours. Many of the organizations competing with us have greater capital resources, larger research and development staffs and facilities, deeper regulatory expertise and more extensive product manufacturing and commercial capabilities than we do, which may afford them a competitive advantage.

Competition for Aficamten

If aficamten is approved by the FDA or other regulatory authorities for the treatment of HCM, it will compete with Camzyos® (mavacamten), a first in class cardiac myosin inhibitor marketed by Bristol Myers Squibb. In addition to Camzyos®, Edgewise Therapeutics is conducting clinical trials and could compete with aficamten if successful. Other companies may also be conducting clinical trials and pre-clinical activities in HCM, and if successful, there may other treatments approved for HCM, some of which may be complementary to aficamten and others of which may be competitive.

The commercial success of aficamten will be highly dependent on differentiation of aficamten from Camzyos®. Camzyos® was approved by FDA with a comprehensive and mandatory REMS, including all or many of the elements to assure safe use (ETASU) that are contemplated in Section 505-1(f)(3) of the U.S. Food, Drug & Cosmetics Act. Our proposed NDA as submitted to FDA contained a distinct risk mitigation approach specific to aficamten. We believe the commercial prospects of aficamten are highly dependent on whether FDA approves aficamten with a label and/or post-marketing conditions that are less challenging to prescribers and patients than the REMS applicable to Camzyos®.

We believe that our ability to successfully compete will depend on, among other things:

Competition for Omecamtiv Mecarbil

We believe the principal competition for omecamtiv mecarbil, if ultimately approved for sales and marketing by FDA and/or other regulatory agencies for the treatment of HFrEF includes generic drugs, such as milrinone, dobutamine or digoxin and branded drugs approved for the treatment of HFrEF such as CORLANOR® (ivabradine), and VERQUVO® (vericiguat). Omecamtiv mecarbil could also compete against other novel drug candidates and therapies in development, such as those being developed by Novartis AG, Merck & Co., Inc., Bayer AG, AstraZeneca PLC and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

If approved, omecamtiv mecarbil is intended not to be competitive to guideline directed first line therapies but a complementary add-on therapy for the subset of heart failure patients with severely reduced ejection fraction. The first line HFrEF generic therapies, including beta-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) as well the branded drugs such as ENTRESTO® (sacubitril/valsartan) and SGLT2 inhibitor class that have either expanded or are planning to expand their labels to include treatment of patients with heart failure, including FORXIGA® (dapagliflozin), INVOKANA® (canagliflozin), and JARDIANCE® (empagliflozin).

The treatement landscape for HFrEF is crowded and evolving rapidly, especially given the addition of SGLT2 inhibitors as AHA/ACC/HFSA guideline directed medical therapy for HFrEF. SGLT2 inhibitors have steadily gained market share. In addition, there are a number of medical devices both marketed and in development for the treatment of patients living with heart failure.

We believe that our ability to successfully compete will depend on, among other things:

Intellectual Property Resources

Our policy is to seek patent protection for the technologies, inventions and improvements that we develop that we consider important to the advancement of our business. As of December 31, 2024, we owned, co-owned or licensed 80 issued U.S. patents, over 600 issued patents in various foreign jurisdictions, and over 380 additional pending U.S. and foreign patent applications. We also rely on trade secrets, technical know-how and continuing innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position.

The following tables list certain granted U.S. and European patents that relate to our most advanced drug candidates. Additional patent protection through granted patents in the U.S., Europe, or other foreign jurisdictions may be available, and additional patent applications in the U.S., Europe, or other foreign jurisdictions are being pursued. In addition to patent exclusivity, the drug candidates may be protected by regulatory exclusivities upon approval in some countries.

Aficamten

The following table describes certain issued U.S. and European patents that relate to aficamten. In addition to the patents listed below, we continue to pursue additional patent applications. At the appropriate time, the company will pursue available patent term extensions and supplementary protection certificates in the U.S. and Europe that may, if issued, extend exclusivity beyond the patent expirations listed in the table.

*Stated expiration dates do not account for any patent term adjustment, patent term extension, supplementary protection certificates, or pediatric extensions that may be available. If aficamten is approved, an extension of the U.S. patent term may be available for one patent covering the approved drug, which could extend the term of the applicable patent by up to a maximum of five additional years but not to exceed a total of 14 years from the date of product approval.

In Japan, aficamten is protected by an issued patent covering the composition of matter of aficamten that expires in 2039. In China, aficamten is protected by issued patents covering the composition of matter, polymorphic forms, and formulations of aficamten that expire between 2039 and 2040. At the appropriate time, the company will pursue available patent term extensions in Japan and China that may, if issued, extend exclusivity beyond the baseline patent expiration dates.

Omecamtiv Mecarbil

The following table describes certain issued U.S. and European patents that relate to omecamtiv mecarbil. In addition to the patents listed below, we continue to pursue additional patent applications. At the appropriate time, the company will pursue available patent term extensions and supplementary protection certificates in the U.S. and Europe that may, if issued, extend exclusivity beyond the patent expirations listed in the table.

*Stated expiration dates do not account for any patent term adjustment, patent term extension, supplementary protection certificates, or pediatric extensions that may be available. If omecamtiv mecarbil is approved, an extension of the U.S. patent term may be available for one patent covering the approved drug, which could extend the term of the applicable patent by up to a maximum of five additional years but not to exceed a total of 14 years from the date of product approval.

In Japan, omecamtiv mecarbil is protected by issued patents covering the composition of matter, the salt form and formulation of omecamtiv mecarbil that expire between 2025 and 2034.

In China, omecamtiv mecarbil is protected by issued patents covering the salt form and formulation of omecamtiv mecarbil that expire in 2034. At the appropriate time, the company will pursue available patent term extensions in Japan and China that may, if issued, extend exclusivity beyond the baseline patent expiration dates.

For a description of the risks relating to our intellectual property, please see the risk factors under Item 1A of this report.

Compliance with Government Regulation

The Regulatory Process for Drug Development

Our business activities, including the manufacturing of our product candidates and our ongoing research and development activities are subject to extensive regulation by numerous governmental authorities in the United States and other countries. Regulation by these government authorities is a significant component in the development, manufacture and commercialization of pharmaceutical products and services. Before marketing in the United States, any new drug developed must undergo rigorous preclinical testing, clinical trials and an extensive regulatory clearance process implemented by the FDA under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as amended (the “FDCA”). The FDCA and other various federal, state and foreign statutes govern or influence the research, testing, manufacture, safety, labeling, storage, recordkeeping, approval, promotion, marketing, distribution, post-approval monitoring and reporting, sampling, quality, and import and export of our medicines. State, local, and other authorities also regulate pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Applicable legislation requires licensing of manufacturing and contract research facilities, carefully controlled research and testing of products, and governmental review and/or approval of results prior to marketing therapeutic products. Additionally, adherence to GLPs and cGCPs during nonclinical and clinical testing and cGMP during production is required. Our manufacturing CMOs are subject to periodic inspection by the FDA and other foreign equivalents to ensure that they are operating in compliance with cGMP requirements. In addition, marketing authorization for each new medicine may require a rigorous manufacturing pre-approval inspection by regulatory authorities. Post approval, there are strict regulations regarding changes to the manufacturing process, and, depending on the significance of the change, changes may require prior FDA approval. FDA regulations also require investigation and correction of any deviations from cGMP and impose reporting and documentation requirements upon us and any third-party manufacturers that we may decide to use.

In addition, we are subject to other state and federal laws, including, among others, anti-kickback laws, fraud and abuse, false claims laws, Sunshine Act, patient protection and affordable care, data privacy and security laws and regulations, and transparency laws that restrict certain business practices in the pharmaceutical industry. Violations of these healthcare laws can result in significant penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties. Moreover, government coverage and reimbursement policies will both directly and indirectly impact our ability to successfully commercialize any future approved products, and such coverage and reimbursement policies will be impacted by enacted and any applicable future healthcare reform and drug pricing measures. Further, the United States and some foreign jurisdictions may consider and enact additional legislative and regulatory initiatives to change the healthcare system and modify these laws in ways that could affect the pharmaceutical industry.

U.S. Pharmaceutical Product Development Process

To establish a new product candidate’s safety and efficacy, the FDA requires companies seeking approval to market a pharmaceutical drug product to submit extensive preclinical and clinical data, along with other information, for each indication for which the product will be labeled. The data and information are submitted to the FDA in the form of a New Drug Application, or NDA, which must be accompanied by payment of a significant user fee unless a waiver or exemption applies. Generating the required data and information for an NDA takes many years and requires the expenditure of substantial resources. Information generated in this process is susceptible to varying interpretations that could delay, limit or prevent regulatory approval at any stage of the process. The failure to demonstrate adequately the quality, safety and efficacy of a product candidate under development would delay or prevent regulatory approval of the product candidate. Under applicable laws and FDA regulations, each NDA submitted for FDA approval is given an internal administrative review within 60 days following submission of the NDA. If deemed sufficiently complete to permit a substantive review, the FDA will “file” the NDA. The FDA can refuse to file any NDA that it deems incomplete or not properly reviewable. The FDA has established internal goals of eight months from submission for priority review of NDAs that cover new product candidates that offer major advances in treatment or provide a treatment where no adequate therapy exists, and 12 months from submission for the standard review of NDAs. However, the FDA is not legally required to complete its review within these periods, these performance goals may change over time and the review is often extended by FDA requests for additional information or clarification. Moreover, the outcome of the review, even if generally favorable, may not be an actual approval but a “complete response letter” that describes additional work that must be done before the NDA can be approved. Before approving an NDA, the FDA can choose to inspect the facilities at which the product is manufactured and will not approve the product unless the manufacturing facility complies with cGMPs. The FDA may also audit sites at which clinical trials have been conducted to determine compliance with cGCPs and data integrity. The FDA’s review of an NDA may also involve review and recommendations by an independent FDA advisory committee, particularly for novel indications. The FDA is not bound by the recommendation of an advisory committee. Further, the FDA may require that certain contraindications, warnings or precautions be included in the product labeling.

Pharmaceutical Coverage, Pricing and Reimbursement

In the United States and markets in other countries, sales of any products for which we receive regulatory approval for commercial sale will depend in part on the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors, including government authorities, managed care providers, private health insurers and other organizations. In the United States, private health insurers and other third-party payors often provide reimbursement for products and services based on the level at which the government (through the Medicare or Medicaid programs) provides reimbursement for such products and services. There is no uniform coverage and reimbursement policy among third-party payors in the United States; however, private third-party payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates. Third-party payors are increasingly examining the medical necessity and cost-effectiveness of medical products and services in addition to their safety and efficacy and, accordingly, significant uncertainty exists as to the coverage and reimbursement status of newly approved therapeutics. In particular, in the United States, the European Union and other potentially significant markets for our product candidates, government authorities and third-party payors are increasingly attempting to limit or regulate the price of medical products and services, particularly for new and innovative products and therapies, which often has resulted in average selling prices that are lower than they would otherwise be. The increased emphasis on managed healthcare in the United States and on country and regional pricing and reimbursement controls in the European Union will put additional pressure on product pricing, reimbursement and utilization, which may adversely affect our future product sales and results of operations. These pressures can arise from rules and practices of managed care groups, judicial decisions and governmental laws and regulations related to Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare reform, pharmaceutical reimbursement policies and pricing in general. As a result, coverage and adequate third-party reimbursement may not be available for our product candidates to enable us to realize an appropriate return on our investment in research and product development.

The market for our products and product candidates for which we may receive regulatory approval will depend significantly on access to third-party payors’ drug formularies, or lists of medications for which third-party payors provide coverage and reimbursement. The industry competition to be included in such formularies often leads to downward pricing pressures on pharmaceutical companies. Also, third-party payors may refuse to include a particular branded drug in their formularies or may otherwise restrict patient access to a branded drug when a less costly generic equivalent or other alternative is available. In addition, because each third-party payor individually approves coverage and reimbursement levels, obtaining coverage and adequate reimbursement is a time-consuming and costly process. We would be required to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of any product to each third-party payor separately with no assurance that approval would be obtained, and we may need to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies in order to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of our products. This process could delay the market acceptance of any of our product candidates for which we may receive approval and could have a negative effect on our future revenue and operating results. We cannot be certain that our product candidates will be considered cost-effective. If we are unable to obtain coverage and adequate payment levels for our product candidates from third-party payors, physicians may limit how much or under what circumstances they will prescribe or administer them and patients may decline to purchase them. This in turn could affect our ability to successfully commercialize our products and impact our profitability, results of operations, financial condition, and future success.

Cytokinetics Human Capital

As of December 31, 2024, we had 498 employees.

We are committed to fostering and maintaining a culture that engenders collaboration and teamwork, inclusion, respect, transparency and candor. We provide our employees with an array of professional development resources and tools to support their learning, growth and development opportunities. We were honored to be recognized as a San Francisco Times Best Place to Work and Great Places to Work in 2024.

Our compensation and benefit programs are designed to enable us to attract and retain the best employees in a very competitive life science sector and regularly benchmark and survey the market to ensure we maintain competitive programs. In addition, we routinely survey our employees to measure engagement, identify and take action on opportunities for improvement, and share these results with employees.

We have a rigorous annual goal setting and goal evaluation process under the supervision of the Compensation and Talent Committee of our Board of Directors and senior management to assist our employees in understanding what is expected of them individually and as an organization.

Our Compensation and Talent Committee of the Board of Directors reviews employee engagement, reward programs, human resource metrics, including attrition, retention and staffing on an on-going basis.

Investor Information

We file electronically with the SEC our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The address of that site is www.sec.gov.

You may obtain a free copy of our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports on the day of filing with the SEC on our website at www.cytokinetics.com or by contacting the Investor Relations Department at our corporate offices by calling 650-624-3060. The information found on our website is not part of this or any other report filed with or furnished to the SEC.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

In evaluating our business, you should carefully consider the following risks in addition to the other information in this report. Any of the following risks could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition or your investment in our securities, and many are beyond our control. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us, or that we currently see as immaterial, may also adversely affect our business.

Risks Specific to our Company in connection with our Research and Development Activities

The regulatory approval and marketing authorization process is expensive, time-consuming and uncertain and may prevent our partners or us from obtaining approvals to commercialize some or all of our drug candidates.

The research, testing, manufacturing, selling and marketing of drugs are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the United States and other countries. Neither we nor our partners are permitted to market our potential drugs in the United States until we receive approval of an NDA from the FDA. We have never received NDA or other marketing approval for any of our drug candidates. Obtaining NDA approval is a lengthy, expensive and uncertain process. The FDA and foreign regulatory agencies can delay, limit or deny approval of a drug candidate for many reasons, including, but not limited to, a determination that a drug candidate is not safe or effective, that the data from non-clinical testing and clinical trials is insufficient and that our partner’s or the contract manufacturer’s processes or facilities are not in compliance with GMP. Even if we receive regulatory approval to manufacture and sell a drug in a particular regulatory jurisdiction, other jurisdictions’ regulatory authorities may not approve that drug for manufacture and sale.

Regulatory approval of an NDA, NDA supplement or other marketing application for our drug candidates is never guaranteed. For example, our NDA for omecamtiv mecarbil for the treatment of HFrEF resulted in a complete response letter notwithstanding the fact that GALACTIC-HF met its primary efficacy endpoint. As an example of the NDA for omecamtiv mecarbil illustrates, while we have submitted an NDA to FDA and an MAA to EMA for aficamten, such marketing applications may not lead to any regulatory approvals, or may result in requirements to conduct additional clinical trials prior to any potential approvals, which would increase our development costs and delay or preclude any revenue from commercial sales of aficamten and/or our other drug candidates.

Clinical trials may fail to demonstrate the desired safety and efficacy of our drug candidates, which could prevent or significantly delay completion of clinical development and regulatory approval.

Prior to receiving approval to commercialize any of our drug candidates, we or our partners must adequately demonstrate to the satisfaction of FDA and foreign regulatory authorities that the drug candidate is sufficiently safe and effective with substantial evidence from well-controlled clinical trials. We or our partners will need to demonstrate efficacy in clinical trials for the treatment of specific indications and monitor safety throughout the clinical development process and following approval. None of our drug candidates have yet met the safety and efficacy standards required for regulatory approval for commercialization and they may never do so. For example, the CRL we received on February 28, 2023 in connection to our NDA for omecamtiv mecarbil stated the results of GALACTIC-HF were not sufficiently persuasive to establish substantial evidence of effectiveness for reducing the risk of heart failure events and cardiovascular death in adults with chronic heart failure with HFrEF, and on March 31, 2023, we announced the discontinuation of COURAGE-ALS, our Phase 3 clinical trial of reldesemtiv in patients with ALS, due to futility. If we fail to demonstrate that our drugs are safe and efficacious, we may incur additional development costs and be precluded from realizing commercial sales for our drug candidates.

If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the trial until its conclusion. We may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, the existence of approved therapies and the concurrent enrollment of clinical trials for competing therapies. The enrollment of patients depends on many factors, including: the patient eligibility criteria defined in the protocol; the size of the patient population required for analysis of the trial’s primary endpoints; the proximity of patients to study sites; the design of the trial; the ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience; clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages of the product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies or clinical trials being conducted by our competitors; the ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; the risk that patients enrolled in clinical trials will drop out of the trials before completion. Delays in patient enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of the planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these trials and adversely affect our and our partners’ ability to advance the development of product candidates.

The failure to successfully develop, manufacture and obtain regulatory clearance or approval of an immunoassay or companion diagnostics, if required by FDA as a condition to approval of our drugs, could harm our development and commercialization strategy for such drugs in key markets.

In connection with the anticipation of filing of a new NDA and MAA for omecamtiv mecarbil at the conclusion of the COMET-HF trial, FDA and/or EMA may require that patients treated with omecamtiv mecarbil have their blood monitored during titration for concentrations of the drug in order to ensure optimized dosing that maximizes benefits without undue risk. We have contracted with Microgenics Corporation, a subsidiary of Thermo Fisher, to develop and eventually commercialize an antibody-based immunoassay for blood concentrations of omecamtiv mecarbil. The development, manufacture and regulatory approval of an antibody-based immunoassay, however, may be complex and/or time consuming. Such an immunoassay could require regulatory clearance by FDA as a companion diagnostic device or similar regulatory clearance by EMA, and there is no assurance that such regulatory clearance will be obtained. In addition, if required by FDA and/or EMA as part of any approved label for omecamtiv mecarbil, we will be dependent on Microgenics Corporation to successfully manufacture and commercialize its immunoassay in sufficient quantities in all key markets in which we may seek to commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil, failing which, our potential sales of omecamtiv mecarbil could be materially adversely affected.

We depend on CROs to conduct our clinical trials and we have limited control over their performance. If these CROs do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines, or if we lose any of our CROs, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our product candidates on a timely basis, if at all.

We have used and intend to continue to use a limited number of CROs within and outside of the United States to conduct clinical trials of our drug candidates and related activities. We do not have control over many aspects of our CROs’ activities, and cannot fully control the amount, timing or quality of resources that they devote to our programs. CROs may not assign as high a priority to our programs or pursue them as diligently as we would if we were undertaking these programs ourselves. The activities conducted by our CROs therefore may not be completed on schedule or in a satisfactory manner. CROs may also give higher priority to relationships with our competitors and potential competitors than to their relationships with us. Outside of the United States, we are particularly dependent on our CROs’ expertise in communicating with clinical trial sites and regulatory authorities and ensuring that our clinical trials and related activities and regulatory filings comply with applicable laws.

Although we rely, and will continue to rely, on these third parties to conduct our clinical trials, we remain responsible for ensuring that each of our studies and clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards and our reliance on third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We, and these third parties are required to comply with cGCPs for clinical studies. cGCPs are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA, EMA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our products in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce cGCPs through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we or any of our third-party contractors fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, including cGCPs, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and FDA, EMA, or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. There can be no assurance that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our clinical trials comply with cGCP regulations. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product produced under cGMP regulations. Our failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which could add additional costs and could delay the regulatory approval process.

Risks Specific to our Company in connection with our Commercial Operations

The size of the potential market for aficamten or our other product candidates is difficult to estimate and, if any of our assumptions are inaccurate, the actual markets for our product candidates may be smaller than our estimates. If the market opportunities for any product candidates we develop are smaller than we believe they are, or if any approval that we obtain is based on a narrower definition of the patient population, our potential revenues may be adversely affected, and our business may suffer.

Our potential market opportunity is based on a number of internal and third-party estimates and resources, including, without limitation, our estimates and research, as well as industry and general publications and research, surveys and studies conducted by third parties, which may be incorrect. Our estimated potential market opportunity for cardiac myosin inhibitors in HCM is based on the following assumptions: our understanding of the prevalence of HCM in the general population from published epidemiological studies and analysis of longitudinal claims data, the percentage split of diagnosed obstructive HCM and non-obstructive HCM patients derived from market research and patient transaction databases, the percentage of available symptomatic patients not adequately managed by the current standard of care among diagnosed HCM patients, rates of patient compliance and persistence, based on patient transaction database and/or third-party market research. The conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates and the market data supporting these assumptions and estimates may change at any time or otherwise be inaccurate, thereby reducing the predictive accuracy of these underlying factors.

Our total addressable market will ultimately depend upon, among other things, the willingness of patients and HCPs to utilize cardiac myosin inhibitors, the number of actual treatable symptomatic patients on cardiac myosin inhibitors therapy over time, the subset of eligible HCM patients included in the final label for each of our product candidates, if approved for sale for these indications, acceptance and accessibility by the medical community and patients, market share, drug pricing and reimbursement across payer types (i.e., Medicare, commercial, Medicaid, etc.). The number of patients with HCM, HFpEF or HFrEF in the United States and other major markets and elsewhere may turn out to be materially lower than expected, patients may not be otherwise amenable to treatment with our product candidates or new patients may become increasingly difficult to identify or gain access to, all of which would harm our results of operations and our business. If our conclusions, analysis or internally generated data prove to be inaccurate or we make errors in our assumptions based on that data, our total addressable market may be meaningfully smaller than we have estimated, our future growth opportunities and sales growth may be impaired, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our competitors may develop drugs that are less expensive, safer and/or have similar or better efficacy than ours, which may diminish or eliminate the commercial success of any drugs that we may commercialize.

We compete with companies that have developed drugs or are developing drug candidates for cardiovascular diseases, diseases and conditions associated with muscle weakness or wasting and other diseases for which our drug candidates may be useful treatments. We will also compete for market share against large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and smaller companies that are collaborating with larger pharmaceutical companies, new companies, academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations. Many of these competitors, either alone or together with their partners, may develop new drug candidates that will compete with ours. Many of these competitors have larger research and development programs or substantially greater financial resources than we do. If our competitors market drugs that are less expensive, safer and/or have similar or better efficacy than our potential drugs, or that reach the market sooner than our potential drugs, we may not achieve commercial success.

The commercial success of our products depends on the availability and sufficiency of third‑party payor coverage and reimbursement.

Patients in the United States and elsewhere generally rely on third‑party payors to reimburse part or all of the costs associated with their prescription drugs. Accordingly, market acceptance of our products is dependent on the extent to which third‑party coverage and reimbursement is available from government health administration authorities (including in connection with government healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid in the United States), private healthcare insurers and other healthcare funding organizations. Significant uncertainty exists as to the coverage and reimbursement status of any products for which we may obtain regulatory approval. Even if we obtain coverage for a given drug product, the timeframe from approval to coverage could be lengthy, inadequate, and/or the associated reimbursement rate may not be adequate to cover our costs, including research, development, intellectual property, manufacture, sale and distribution expenses, or may require co‑payments that patients find unacceptably high.

We currently have limited interactions and relationships with payors. Our ability to engage with US payors and secure coverage may improve as FDA review of our NDA advances. Over time, we anticipate our drugs will be adopted by our patients as indicated by their labels once they are approved by regulatory authorities. To achieve this adoption, our drugs will need to be widely reimbursed and listed in formularies of major pharmacy benefit managers and payors in the U.S. These major pharmacy benefit managers and payors include Medicare, Medicaid, VA, DoD, TriCare, and commercial payors. The process to achieve coverage with pharmacy benefit managers and payors can be time consuming, is not guaranteed and if achieved can impact profitability given the level of rebates often required.

Coverage and reimbursement policies for drug products can differ significantly from payor to payor as there is no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products among third‑party payors in the United States. There may be significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement as the process of determining coverage and reimbursement is often time‑consuming and costly which will require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our products to each payor separately, with no assurance that coverage or adequate reimbursement will be obtained. It is difficult to predict at this time what third-party will decide with respect to coverage and reimbursement for our products. Coverage policies and third party reimbursement rates may change at any time. Even if favorable coverage and reimbursement status is attained for one or more products for which we receive regulatory approval, less favorable coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future.

In addition, there is significant uncertainty regarding the reimbursement status of newly approved healthcare products. We may need to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies in order to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of our products. If third-party payors do not consider our products to be cost-effective compared to other therapies, the payors may not cover our products as a benefit under their plans, or if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow us to sell our products on a profitable basis.

Additionally, to the extent required by regulatory authorities for the safe and effective use of any of our future marketed products, we or our partners may develop companion diagnostic tests for use with our product candidates such as with omecamtiv mecarbil. Companion diagnostic tests require coverage and reimbursement separate and apart from the coverage and reimbursement for their companion pharmaceutical or biological products. Similar challenges to obtaining coverage and reimbursement, applicable to pharmaceutical products, will apply to companion diagnostics and could adversely impact the commercial prospects of omecamtiv mecarbil or any other drug we may develop that requires a companion diagnostic test.

If we are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient third‑party coverage and adequate reimbursement for our products, the commercial success of our drug products may be greatly hindered and our financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

We have no manufacturing capabilities and depend on contract manufacturers to produce our clinical trial materials, including our drug candidates, and will have continued reliance on contract manufacturers for the development and commercialization of our potential drugs.

We do not operate manufacturing facilities for clinical or commercial production of our drug candidates and rely on CMOs for the manufacture of finished drug product and active pharmaceutical ingredient. We have limited experience in drug formulation and manufacturing, and we lack the resources and the capabilities to manufacture any of our drug candidates on a clinical or commercial scale.

In addition, under our license and collaboration agreements, we have committed to providing Sanofi and Bayer with supply of aficamten for development and commercialization of aficamten in China, Taiwan and Japan, which we will have to source from our contract manufacturers. We expect to rely on contract manufacturers to supply all future drug candidates for which we conduct development, as well as other materials required to conduct our clinical trials, and to fulfil our obligations under our license and collaboration agreements.

If any of our existing or future contract manufacturers fail to, or are unable to perform satisfactorily or if any of the raw materials or drug products are subject to restrictive import/export controls, it could delay development or regulatory approval of our drug candidates or commercialization of our drugs, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential product revenues, and also lead to our breach of one of our license and collaboration agreements, giving rise to the ability to terminate such agreements and other adverse consequences as stipulated in such agreements. In addition, if a contract manufacturer fails to, or is unable to, perform as agreed, our ability to collect damages may be contractually limited.

Switching manufacturers or manufacturing sites would be difficult and time-consuming because the number of potential manufacturers is limited. In addition, before a drug from any replacement manufacturer or manufacturing site can be commercialized, the FDA and, in some cases, foreign regulatory agencies, must approve that site. These approvals would require regulatory testing and compliance inspections. A new manufacturer or manufacturing site also would have to be educated in, or develop substantially equivalent processes for, production of our drugs and drug candidates. It may be difficult or impossible to transfer certain elements of a manufacturing process to a new manufacturer or for us to find a replacement manufacturer on acceptable terms quickly, or at all, either of which would delay or prevent our ability to develop drug candidates and commercialize any resulting drugs.

We may not be able to successfully manufacture our drug candidates in sufficient quality and quantity, which would delay or prevent us from developing our drug candidates and commercializing approved drug products, if any.

To date, our drug candidates have been manufactured in quantities adequate for preclinical studies and early through late-stage clinical trials. In order to conduct large scale clinical trials for a drug candidate and for commercialization of the resulting drug if that drug candidate is approved for sale, we will need to manufacture some drug candidates in larger quantities and validate the repeatability of those manufacturing processes. We may not be able to successfully repeat or increase the manufacturing capacity for any of our drug candidates, whether in collaboration with third-party manufacturers or on our own, in a timely or cost-effective manner or at all. Significant changes or scale-up of manufacturing may require additional validation studies, which are costly and which regulatory authorities must review and approve. In addition, quality issues may arise during those changes or scale-up activities because of the inherent properties of a drug candidate itself or of a drug candidate in combination with other components added during the manufacturing and packaging process, or during shipping and storage of the finished product or active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Our drug candidates require precise high-quality manufacturing. The failure to achieve and maintain high manufacturing standards in compliance with cGMP, including failure to document and detect, control, analyze and resolve anticipated or unanticipated manufacturing errors or the frequent occurrence of such errors, could result in patient injury or death, discontinuance or delay of ongoing or planned clinical trials, delays or failures in product testing or delivery or regulatory approval, cost overruns, product recalls or withdrawals and other problems that could seriously hurt our business. Contract drug manufacturers often encounter difficulties involving production yields, quality control and quality assurance and shortages of qualified personnel. These manufacturers are subject to stringent regulatory requirements, including cGMPs, regulations and similar foreign laws and standards. Each contract manufacturer must pass a pre-approval inspection before we can obtain marketing approval for any of our drug candidates and following approval will be subject to ongoing periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and other regulatory agencies, to ensure strict compliance with cGMPs and other applicable government regulations and corresponding foreign laws and standards. We seek to ensure that we and our contract manufacturers comply fully with all applicable regulations, laws and standards. However, we do not have control over our contract manufacturers’ compliance with these regulations, laws and standards. If one of our contract manufacturers fails to pass its pre-approval inspection or maintain ongoing compliance at any time, the production of our drug candidates could be interrupted, resulting in delays or discontinuance of our clinical trials, additional costs and potentially lost revenues from delays or refusals of regulatory approvals for our drug candidates. In addition, failure of any third-party manufacturers or us to comply with applicable regulations, including pre- or post-approval inspections and the cGMP requirements of the FDA or other comparable regulatory agencies, could result in sanctions being imposed on us. These sanctions could include fines, injunctions, civil penalties, failure of regulatory authorities to grant marketing approval of our products, delay, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, product seizures or recalls, operational restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect our business.

If we or our partners receive regulatory approval for our drug candidates, we or they will be subject to ongoing obligations to and continued regulatory review by the FDA and foreign regulatory agencies, and may be subject to additional post-marketing obligations such as an ETASU or other form of REMS, all of which may result in significant expense and limit commercialization of our potential drugs.

Any regulatory approvals that we or our partners receive for our drug candidates may be subject to limitations on the indicated uses for which the drug may be marketed or require potentially costly post-marketing follow-up studies or compliance with a REMS program that includes FDA's elements of safe use. For example, Camzyos® (mavacamten), a small molecule myosin inhibitor commercialized by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company has a similar mechanism of action to aficamten and is subject to a REMS with all of the elements of safe use, an FDA imposed program designed to support the safe use of certain medications with serious safety concerns to help ensure the benefits of the medication outweigh its risks. The Camzyos® (mavacamten) REMS program requires, among other things, restrictions and qualifications on pharmacies that dispense the drug and certification, record-keeping, ongoing monitoring and patient counseling obligations on physicians who prescribe the drug. The requirements of an REMS program, particularly one that includes the FDA's elements of safe use, may limit the commercial success of a drug due by making it more difficult and time consuming for physicians to prescribe the drug and for patients to obtain and subsequently use a drug. Since aficamten is a small molecule myosin inhibitor with a similar mechanism of action to Camzyos® (mavacamten), it is possible that FDA or other regulatory bodies may condition marketing approval of aficamten on the implementation of a similar REMS program to that of Camzyos® (mavacamten). The commercial success of aficamten will be highly dependent on differentiation of aficamten from Camzyos®. Our proposed NDA as submitted to FDA contained a distinct risk mitigation approach specific to aficamten. We believe the commercial prospects of aficamten are highly dependent on whether FDA approves aficamten with a label and/or post-marketing conditions that are less challenging to prescribers and patients than the REMS applicable to Camzyos®.

In addition, if the FDA or foreign regulatory agencies approves any of our drug candidates, the labeling, packaging, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion and record-keeping for the drug will be subject to extensive regulatory requirements. The subsequent discovery of previously unknown problems with the drug, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or the discovery that adverse events or toxicities observed in preclinical research or clinical trials that were believed to be minor constitute much more serious problems, may result in restrictions on the marketing of the drug or withdrawal of the drug from the market.

If physicians and patients do not accept our drugs, we may be unable to generate significant revenue, if any.

Even if our drug candidates obtain regulatory approval, the resulting drugs, if any, may not gain market acceptance among physicians, healthcare payors, patients and the medical community. Even if the clinical safety and efficacy of drugs developed from our drug candidates are established for purposes of approval, physicians may elect not to recommend these drugs for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to: the availability of competitive drugs to the market; cost-effectiveness; availability of insurance coverage and reimbursement; convenience and ease of administration; prevalence and severity of adverse events; HCP practice patterns and familiarity with earlier to market therapies.

Risks Specific to our Company in connection with our Intellectual Property

Our success depends substantially upon our ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection relating to our drug candidates, compounds and research technologies.

We own, co-own or hold exclusive licenses to a number of U.S. and foreign patents and patent applications directed to our drug candidates, compounds and research technologies. Our success depends on our ability to obtain patent protection both in the United States and in other countries for our drug candidates, their methods of manufacture and use, and our technologies. Our ability to protect our drug candidates, compounds and technologies from unauthorized or infringing use by third parties depends substantially on our ability to obtain and enforce our patents. If our issued patents and patent applications, if granted, do not adequately describe, enable or otherwise provide coverage of our technologies and drug candidates, we, our licensors or our licensees would not be able to exclude others from developing or commercializing these drug candidates. Furthermore, the degree of future protection of our proprietary rights is uncertain because legal means may not adequately protect our rights or permit us to gain or keep our competitive advantage. If we are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient intellectual property protection for our technologies and drug candidates, or if the scope of the intellectual property protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize drug candidates similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize product candidates that we may pursue may be impaired.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world. Patent protection is afforded on a country-by-country basis. Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on our product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States can be less extensive than those in the United States. Many companies have encountered significant difficulties in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. In addition, the legal protection afforded to inventors and owners of intellectual property in countries outside of the United States may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as in the United States. Therefore, we may be unable to acquire and protect intellectual property developed by these contractors to the same extent as if these development activities were being conducted in the United States. If we encounter difficulties in protecting our intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions, our business prospects could be substantially harmed.

Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on our technologies and drug candidates for an adequate amount of time. Patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date. Various extensions may be available, but the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Even if patents covering our technologies and drug candidates are obtained, once the patent life has expired, we may be open to competition from competitive products, including generics. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new drug candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned, co-owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours or our partners.

If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, the value of our technology could be materially adversely affected and our business would be harmed.

We rely on trade secrets to protect our technology, particularly where we believe patent protection is not appropriate or obtainable. However, trade secrets are often difficult to protect, especially outside of the United States. While we endeavor to use reasonable efforts to protect our trade secrets, our or our partners’ employees, consultants, contractors or scientific and other advisors may unintentionally or willfully disclose our information to competitors. In addition, confidentiality agreements, if any, executed by those individuals may not be enforceable or provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets or other proprietary information in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure. We cannot be certain that such agreements have been entered into with all relevant parties, and we cannot be certain that our trade secrets and other confidential proprietary information will not be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. Pursuing a claim that a third party had illegally obtained and was using our trade secrets would be expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome would be unpredictable. Even if we are able to maintain our trade secrets as confidential, if our competitors lawfully obtain or independently develop information equivalent or similar to our trade secrets, our business could be harmed.

If we are sued for infringing third-party intellectual property rights, it will be costly and time-consuming, and an unfavorable outcome could have a significant adverse effect on our business.

Our ability to commercialize drugs depends on our ability to use, manufacture and sell those drugs without infringing the patents or other proprietary rights of third parties. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications owned by third parties exist in the therapeutic areas in which we are developing drug candidates and seeking new potential drug candidates. In addition, because patent applications can take several years to issue, there may be currently pending applications, unknown to us, which could later result in issued patents that our activities with our drug candidates could infringe. There may also be existing patents, unknown to us, that our activities with our drug candidates could infringe.

If a third party claims that our actions infringe its patents or other proprietary rights, we could face a number of issues that could seriously harm our competitive position, including, but not limited to: infringement and other intellectual property claims can be costly and time-consuming to litigate; substantial damages; a court prohibiting us from selling or licensing our drugs or technologies; and if a license is available to such technology, we may have to pay substantial royalties or grant cross-licenses to our patents or other proprietary rights.

We may undertake infringement or other legal proceedings against third parties, causing us to spend substantial resources on litigation and exposing our own intellectual property portfolio to challenge.

Third parties may infringe our patents. To prevent infringement or unauthorized use, we may need to file infringement suits, which are expensive and time-consuming. In an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that one or more of our patents is invalid, unenforceable, or both. In such case third parties may be able to use our technology without paying licensing fees or royalties. Even if the validity of our patents is upheld, a court may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the ground that the other party’s activities are not covered by our patents. Policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult, and we may not be able to prevent misappropriation of our proprietary rights, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect such rights as fully as in the United States. In addition, third parties may affirmatively challenge the scope or validity of our patent rights.

We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants or independent contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of third parties or that we or our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed trade secrets of their former employers.

Many of our employees were previously employed at universities or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although no legal proceedings against us are currently pending, we may be subject to claims that these employees or we have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of their former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending these claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. A loss of key research personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to develop and commercialize certain potential drugs, which could significantly harm our business. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and distract management.

Financial Risks

We have a history of significant losses and may not achieve or sustain profitability and, as a result, you may lose part or all of your investment.

We have incurred operating losses in each year since our inception in 1997, due to costs incurred in connection with our research and development activities and general and administrative costs associated with our operations. Our drug candidates are all in early through late-stage clinical testing. We expect to incur increasing losses, as we continue our research activities and conduct development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our drug candidates, and commercialize aficamten, if approved. If our drug candidates fail or do not gain regulatory approval, or if our drugs do not achieve market acceptance, we will not be profitable. If we fail to become and remain profitable, or if we are unable to fund our continuing losses, you could lose part or all of your investment.

We will need substantial additional capital in the future to sufficiently fund and maintain our operations.

We have consumed substantial amounts of capital to date, and our operating expenditures will increase as we expand our research and development activities and expand our organization to commercialize aficamten, if approved. We have funded our operations and capital expenditures with proceeds primarily from private and public sales of our equity securities, royalty monetization agreements, revenue interest agreements, strategic alliances, long-term debt, other financings, interest on investments and grants. We believe our existing cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and interest earned on investments should be sufficient to meet our projected operating requirements for at least the next 12 months. We based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could utilize our available capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with the development of our drug candidates and other research and development activities, including risks and uncertainties that could impact the rate of progress of our development activities, we are unable to estimate with certainty the amounts of capital outlays and operating expenditures associated with these activities.

For the foreseeable future, our operations will require significant additional funding, in large part due to our research and development expenses, the organizational scale up and associated expenditures with commercial readiness activities to launch aficamten, if approved, combined with the absence of any revenues until sometime in late 2025, if at all. Until we can generate a sufficient amount of product revenue, we expect to raise future capital through strategic alliance and licensing arrangements, public or private equity offerings and debt financings. We do not have any commitments for future funding other than through loans under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement and reimbursements, milestone and royalty payments that we may receive under our agreements with Sanofi and Bayer. We may not receive any further funds under any of these agreements, for example, if we fail to satisfy the conditions for future loan disbursement or as a result of the default or insolvency of our lenders. Our ability to raise funds may be adversely impacted by worsening economic conditions or disruptions to, and volatility in, the credit and financial markets in the U.S. and worldwide. As a result of these and other factors, we do not know whether additional financing will be available when needed, or that, if available, such financing would be on terms favorable to our stockholders or us, and if we cannot raise the funds we need to operate our business, we will need to delay or discontinue certain research and development activities, and our stock price may be negatively affected.

Our indebtedness and liabilities could limit the cash flow available for our operations, expose us to risks that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and impair our ability to satisfy our obligations under the 2026 Notes, the 2027 Notes, the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement and the RP OM Loan Agreement.

As of December 31, 2024 and 2023 we had $0.8 billion and $0.6 billion of debt recorded on the balance sheet comprised of the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, the RP OM Loan Agreement, and the 2026 and 2027 Convertible Notes, respectively.

We may also incur additional indebtedness to meet future financing needs. Our indebtedness could have significant negative consequences for our security holders and our business, results of operations and financial condition by, among other things: increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic and industry conditions; limiting our ability to obtain additional financing; requiring the dedication of a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to service our indebtedness, which will reduce the amount of cash available for other purposes; limiting our flexibility to plan for, or react to, changes in our business; diluting the interests of our existing stockholders as a result of issuing shares of our common stock upon conversion of the Convertible Notes; and placing us at a possible competitive disadvantage with competitors that are less leveraged than us or have better access to capital.

Our business may not generate sufficient funds, and we may otherwise be unable to maintain sufficient cash reserves, to pay amounts due under our indebtedness and our cash needs may increase in the future. In addition, any required repurchase of the Convertible Notes for cash as a result of a fundamental change would lower our current cash on hand such that we would not have those funds available for us in our business. Further any future indebtedness that we may incur may contain financial and other restrictive covenants that limit our ability to operate our business, raise capital or make payments under our other indebtedness. If we fail to comply with these covenants or to make payments under our indebtedness when due, then we would be in default under that indebtedness, which could, in turn, result in that and our other indebtedness becoming immediately payable in full.

Covenants in the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, the RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP Aficamten RPA, the RP OM RPA, and the indentures related to our Convertible Notes restrict our business and operations in many ways and if we do not effectively manage our covenants, our financial conditions and results of operations could be adversely affected.

The RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, the RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP Aficamten RPA, the RP OM RPA, and the indentures related to the Convertible Notes require that we comply with certain covenants, including among other things, covenants restricting dispositions, changes in business, management, ownership or business locations, mergers or acquisitions, indebtedness, encumbrances, distributions, investments, transactions with affiliates and subordinated debt, any of which could restrict our business and operations, particularly our ability to respond to changes in our business or to take specified actions to take advantage of certain business opportunities that may be presented to us. In addition, the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP Aficamten RPA and the RP OM RPA contain certain covenants applicable to us, including among other things, development and commercialization diligence obligations in connection to aficamten, omecamtiv mecarbil and CK-586 and reporting obligations, which could also restrict our business and operations, particularly in connection to our development and commercialization of aficamten, omecamtiv mecarbil and CK-586.

Our failure to comply with any of the covenants could result in a default under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, the RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP Aficamten RPA, the RP OM RPA, or the indentures related to the Convertible Notes, which could permit the counterparties to declare all or part of any outstanding borrowings or other payment obligations to be immediately due and payable and/or enforce any outstanding liens against our assets.

We have no rights to repurchase the revenue interests in aficamten, omecamtiv mecarbill, or CK-586 (other than, in respect of CK-586 only, in connection with a change of control of Cytokinetics) sold to affiliates of Royalty Pharma, thereby limiting our ability to eliminate future applicability of the covenants contained in the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP OM RPA and the RP Aficamten RPA, and although we have voluntary prepayment rights under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement and the RP OM Loan Agreement, any voluntary prepayment rights under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement require that we pay 190% of the principal amount of amounts disbursed to us as tranche 1, tranche 4, tranche 5, tranche 6, and tranche 7 loans and 200% for tranche 2 and tranche 3 loans, thereby making it potentially disadvantageous to voluntarily prepay RPDF prior to the final maturity date applicable to loans outstanding under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement.

Finally, should we be unable to comply with our covenants or if we default on any portion of our outstanding borrowings under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement or the RP OM Loan Agreement, in addition to its rights to accelerate and demand for immediate repayment of amounts outstanding under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, we would be liable for default interest at a rate of 4% over the prime rate.

We may not be entitled to obtain additional loan disbursements under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement.

The RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement makes available to us up to $525.0 million in loans ($75.0 million of which is no longer available to us as a result of conditions not having been satisfied), of which a $50.0 million loan was disbursed to us upon execution of the original RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement and a $50.0 million loan was disbursed to us upon our entry into an amendment to the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement on May 22, 2024. Should we not satisfy the conditions for tranches 5 and 7, or in the event we fail to meet our obligations or default under the agreement, the actual amount of additional loan disbursements could be substantially less than the maximum amounts available thereunder.

Conversion of our outstanding Convertible Notes may result in the dilution of existing stockholders, create downward pressure on the price of our common stock, and restrict our ability to take advantage of future opportunities.

The Convertible Notes may be converted into cash and shares of our common stock (subject to our right or obligation to pay cash in lieu of all or a portion of such shares). If shares of our common stock are issued to the holders of the Convertible Notes upon conversion, there will be dilution to our stockholders’ equity and the market price of our shares may decrease due to the additional selling pressure in the market. Any downward pressure on the price of our common stock caused by the sale or potential sale of shares issuable upon conversion of the Convertible Notes could also encourage short sales by third parties, creating additional selling pressure on our stock. The existence of the Convertible Notes and the obligations that we incurred by issuing them may restrict our ability to take advantage of certain future opportunities, such as engaging in future debt or equity financing activities.

We will depend on Sanofi for the development and commercialization of aficamten in China and Bayer for the development and commercialization of aficamten in Japan.

Under the terms of our license and collaboration agreements, Sanofi and Bayer are responsible for the development and commercialization of aficamten in China and Japan, respectively. The timing and amount of any milestone and royalty payments we may receive under our license and collaboration agreements from Sanofi and Bayer will depend in part on the efforts and successful commercialization of aficamten by our outlicense partners. We do not control the individual efforts of outlicense partners, and any failure by our partners to devote sufficient time and effort to the development and commercialization of aficamten or to meet their respective obligations to us, including for future milestone and royalty payments; or to satisfactorily resolve significant disagreements with us could each have an adverse impact on our financial results and operations. We depend on our partners to comply with all applicable local laws relative to the development and commercialization of aficamten. If our partners violate, or are alleged to have violated, any laws or regulations during the performance of its obligations for us, it is possible that we could suffer financial and reputational harm or other negative outcomes, including possible legal consequences.

Any termination, breach or expiration of any of the license and collaboration agreements with Sanofi and Bayer could have a material adverse effect on our financial position by reducing or eliminating the potential for us to receive milestones and royalties. In such an event, we may be required to devote additional efforts and to incur additional costs associated with pursuing the development and commercialization of aficamten in China or Japan. Alternatively, we may attempt to identify and transact with a new sub-licensee, but there can be no assurance that we would be able to identify a suitable sub-licensee or transact on terms that are favorable to us.

Our ability to use net operating loss carryforwards and tax credit carryforwards to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations, and ownership changes may limit our ability to use our net operating losses and tax credits in the future.

Our ability to use our federal and state NOLs to offset potential future taxable income and reduce related income taxes depends upon our generation of future taxable income. We cannot predict with certainty when, or whether, we will generate sufficient taxable income to use our NOLs.

Any material limitation or expiration of our NOLs and tax credit carryforwards may harm our future net income by effectively increasing our future effective tax rate, which could result in a reduction in the market price of our common stock.

We are obligated to maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting. In the future, we may not complete our execution of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or these internal controls may not be determined to be effective, which may result in material misstatements in our consolidated financial statements and may adversely affect investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of our common stock.

We are required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.

If material weaknesses are identified in the future or we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, our reported financial results could be materially misstated, we would receive an adverse opinion regarding our internal controls over financial reporting from our independent registered public accounting firm, and we could be subject to investigations or sanctions by regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources, and the value of our common stock could decline. To the extent we identify future weaknesses or deficiencies, there could be material misstatements in our consolidated financial statements and we could fail to meet our financial reporting obligations. As a result, our ability to obtain additional financing, or obtain additional financing on favorable terms, could be materially and adversely affected which, in turn, could materially and adversely affect our business, our financial condition and the value of our common stock.

Legal and Compliance Risks

Recently enacted laws, including the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, and potential future legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us to obtain regulatory approval of, and to commercialize our products and to obtain Medicare coverage by 3rd party plans and affect the prices we may obtain upon commercialization.

The regulations that govern, among other things, regulatory approvals, coverage, pricing and reimbursement for new drug products vary widely from country to country. In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could prevent or delay regulatory approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to successfully sell any product candidates for which we obtain regulatory approval.

For example, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, was signed into law, which, among other things, includes prescription drug provisions that may impact product pricing including the potential for net price reductions and/or the ability to increase price beyond the level of inflation over the lifecycle of our products, and/or may increase our rebate obligation to Medicare. The IRA implements inflation rebates in Medicare when a drug’s Average Manufacturer Price (AMP, in Part D) or Average Sale Price (ASP, in Part B) rises faster than the inflation index (CPI-U). In addition, the Part D drug benefit caps beneficiary spending at $2,000, eliminates the coverage gap for patients, and modifies, beginning in 2025, liabilities for drug manufacturers by replacing the 70% discount in the Coverage gap with a 10% discount in the Initial Coverage phase and a 20% discount in the Catastrophic phase. The IRA may also impact our ability to achieve broad coverage of our products by Medicare Plans as the IRA reduces the government’s and beneficiaries' liability for drug spending while shifting costs to health plans and drug manufacturers. The IRA permits HHS to implement many of these provisions through guidance, as opposed to regulation, for the initial years.

There have been, and likely will continue to be, legislative and regulatory proposals at the foreign, federal and state levels directed at broadening the availability of healthcare and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. However, we cannot predict the timing or substance of proposals that may be adopted in the future, particularly in light of the difficulty of advancing legislation through Congress. The continuing efforts of governments, insurance companies, managed care organizations and other payors of healthcare services to contain or reduce costs of healthcare, including by imposing price controls, may adversely affect the demand and/or potential sales for our product candidates for which we obtain regulatory approval and our ability to set a price that we believe is fair for our products. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.

We cannot predict the likelihood, nature, or extent of health reform initiatives that may arise from future legislation or administrative action and cannot predict the effect of any of such initiatives on our future financial results or the value of our common stock.

Our relationships with customers, healthcare providers, clinical trial sites and professionals and third-party payors will be subject to applicable anti-kickback, fraud and abuse and other laws and regulations. If we fail to comply with federal, state and foreign laws and regulations, including healthcare, privacy and data security laws and regulations, we could face criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm and diminished profits and future earnings.

Healthcare providers, including physicians and third-party payors play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any drug candidates for which we may obtain marketing approval. Our arrangements with customers, healthcare providers and third-party payors anywhere in the world may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we develop, and may market, sell and distribute, our products for which we obtain marketing approval.

Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, exclusion from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid in the United States, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. Exclusion, suspension and debarment from government funded healthcare programs would significantly impact our ability to commercialize, sell or distribute any drug. If any of the physicians or other providers or entities with whom we expect to do business are found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs.

We may be subject to costly product liability or other liability claims and may not be able to obtain adequate insurance.

The use of our drug candidates in clinical trials or by commercial patients may result in adverse events. We cannot predict all the possible harms or adverse events that may result from our clinical trials. We cannot predict all the possible harms or adverse events that may result from our clinical trials or the commercial use of any commercial products that may be approved in the future. We currently maintain limited product liability insurance, but such insurance may not be sufficient to cover any damages for which we may become liable, and we may be unable to continue to obtain such insurance on acceptable terms with adequate coverage, or at reasonable costs. Beyond insurance, we may not have sufficient resources to pay for any liabilities resulting from a personal injury or other claim.

We are subject to laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and the collection and processing of personal data. Failure to maintain compliance with these regulations could create additional liabilities for us.

The legislative and regulatory landscape for privacy and data protection continues to evolve in the U.S. and other jurisdictions around the world. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA") affords California residents expanded privacy rights and protections, including civil penalties for violations and statutory damages under a private right of action for data security breaches. These protections were expanded by the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA") with the CPRA’s implementing regulations currently subject to a stay of enforcement until one year from their issuance. Privacy laws in other states may also impact our operations, including both comprehensive and sector-specific legislation, and Congress is also considering additional federal privacy legislation. In addition, most healthcare professionals and facilities are subject to privacy and security requirements under HIPAA with respect to our clinical and commercial activities. Although we are not considered to be a covered entity or business associate under HIPAA, we could be subject to penalties if we use or disclose individually identifiable health information in a manner not authorized or permitted by HIPAA. Other countries also have, or are developing, laws governing the collection, use and transmission of personal information. For example, in the EU, the GDPR regulates the processing of personal data of individuals within the EU, even if, under certain circumstances, that processing occurs outside the EU, and also places restrictions on transfers of such data to countries outside of the EU, including the U.S. Should we fail to provide adequate privacy or data security protections or maintain compliance with these laws and regulations, including the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA, as well as the GDPR, we could be subject to sanctions or other penalties, litigation, an increase in our cost of doing business and questions concerning the validity of our data processing activities, including clinical trials.

Responding to any claims relating to improper handling, storage or disposal of the hazardous chemicals and radioactive and biological materials we use in our business could be time-consuming and costly.

Our research and development processes involve the controlled use of hazardous materials, including chemicals and radioactive and biological materials. Our operations produce hazardous waste products. We cannot eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or discharge and any resultant injury from those materials. Federal, state and local laws and regulations govern the use, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of hazardous materials. We may be sued for any injury or contamination that results from our or third parties’ use of these materials. Compliance with environmental laws and regulations is expensive, and current or future environmental regulations may impair our research, development and production activities.

General Risk Factors

Our failure to attract and retain skilled personnel could impair our drug development, commercialization and financial reporting activities.

Our business depends on the performance of our senior management and key scientific, commercial and technical personnel. The loss of the services of any member of our senior management or key scientific, technical, commercial or financial reporting staff may significantly delay or prevent the achievement of drug development and other business objectives by diverting management’s attention to transition matters and identifying suitable replacements. We also rely on consultants and advisors to assist us in formulating our research and development strategy. All of our consultants and advisors are either self-employed or employed by other organizations, and they may have conflicts of interest or other commitments, such as consulting or advisory contracts with other organizations, that may affect their ability to contribute to us. In addition, if and as our business grows, we will need to recruit additional executive management and scientific, technical and financial reporting personnel, particularly in Europe, where we need to build the corporate and commercial infrastructure, including identification and recruitment of qualified personnel to enable commercial operations by the time of a potential EMA approval of one of our drug candidates. There is intense competition for skilled executives and employees with relevant scientific and technical expertise, and this competition is likely to continue. Our inability to attract and retain sufficient scientific, technical, commercial and managerial personnel could limit or delay our product development or commercialization activities, which would adversely affect the development of our drug candidates and commercialization of our potential drugs and growth of our business.

Significant disruptions of information technology systems or breaches of data security could adversely affect our business.

Our business is increasingly dependent on complex and interdependent information technology systems, including internet-based systems, databases and programs, to support our business processes as well as internal and external communications. Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems and those of our third-party CROs, CMOs, supply chain partners, collaboration partners and other contractors and consultants are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. As use of information technology systems has increased, deliberate attacks and attempts to gain unauthorized access to computer systems and networks have increased in frequency and sophistication. Our information technology, systems and networks are potentially vulnerable to breakdown, malicious intrusion and computer viruses which may result in the impairment of production and key business processes or loss of data or information. We are also potentially vulnerable to data security breaches—whether by employees or others—which may expose sensitive data to unauthorized persons. We have in the past and may in the future be subject to security breaches. For example, one of our employee’s email account suffered an unauthorized intrusion, leading to the submission and inadvertent payment of a fraudulent invoice in the amount of approximately one hundred thousand dollars. In December 2019, our IT systems were exposed to a ransomware attack, which partially impaired certain IT systems for a short period of time. Although we do not believe that we have experienced any material losses related to security breaches, including in recent email “phishing” incidents or the ransomware attack, there can be no assurance that we will not suffer such losses in the future. Breaches and other inappropriate access can be difficult to detect and any delay in identifying them could increase their harm. While we have implemented measures to protect our data security and information technology systems, such measures may not prevent these events. Any such breaches of security and inappropriate access could disrupt our operations, harm our reputation or otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, the loss of clinical study data from completed or ongoing clinical studies for any of our drug candidates could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data.

Our facilities in California are located near an earthquake fault, and an earthquake or other types of natural disasters, catastrophic events or resource shortages could disrupt our operations and adversely affect our results.

All our facilities and our important documents and records, such as hard and electronic copies of our laboratory books and records for our drug candidates and compounds and our electronic business records, are located in our corporate headquarters at a single location in South San Francisco, California near active earthquake zones. If a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire or flood, a catastrophic event such as a disease pandemic or terrorist attack, or a localized extended outage of critical utilities or transportation systems occurs, we could experience a significant business interruption. Our partners and other third parties on which we rely may also be subject to business interruptions from such events. In addition, California from time to time has experienced shortages of water, electric power and natural gas. Future shortages and conservation measures could disrupt our operations and cause expense, thus adversely affecting our business and financial results.

We expect that our stock price will fluctuate significantly, and you may not be able to resell your shares at or above your investment price.

Our stock price experiences significant volatility, which often does not directly relate to our operating performance. For example, in 2024, the closing price of our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market ranged from $46.36 to $108.06. Factors that have caused and could cause in the future volatility in the market price of our common stock include, but are not limited to: announcements concerning any of the clinical trials for our drug candidates (including, but not limited to, the timing of initiation or completion of such trials and the results of such trials, and delays or discontinuations of such trials, including delays resulting from slower than expected or suspended patient enrollment or discontinuations resulting from a failure to meet pre-defined clinical end points); the commencement, settlement or adverse conclusion of litigation or a governmental investigation; failure or discontinuation of any of our research programs; issuance of new or changed securities analysts’ reports or recommendations; market conditions in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other healthcare-related sectors; actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly financial and operating results; substantial sales of our common stock by our existing stockholders, whether or not related to our performance; and other factors described in this “Risk Factors” section.

Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable and may lead to entrenchment of management.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control of us that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which you might otherwise receive a premium for your shares. Among other things, these provisions: establish a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which may delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors; prohibit removal of directors without cause; authorize our board of directors to issue preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer; require the approval of at least two-thirds of the shares entitled to vote at an election of directors to adopt, amend or repeal our bylaws or our amended and restated certificate of incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors; do not allow stockholders to call a special meeting of stockholders; and

require stock holders to provide advance notice in order to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.

We are also subject to the anti-takeover provisions contained in Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. Under Section 203, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its capital stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other exceptions, the board of directors has approved the transaction. These provisions could discourage potential acquisition proposals and could delay or prevent a change in control transaction. They could also have the effect of discouraging others from making tender offers for our common stock, including transactions that may be in your best interests. These provisions may also prevent changes in our management or limit the price that investors are willing to pay for our stock.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES

Our material facilities consist of 234,892 square feet of leased office and laboratory space at 350 Oyster Point, South San Francisco, California. Our lease over this property expires in 2033.

We believe that these facilities are suitable and adequate for our current needs.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We are not currently subject to any material legal proceedings.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

PART II

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Market information for common stock

Our common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “CYTK.”

Performance Graph

The comparisons in the table below are required by the SEC and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of possible future performance of our common stock. This graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liabilities under that Section, and shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any of our filings under the Securities Act, whether made before or after the date hereof and irrespective of any general incorporation language in any such filing, except to the extent we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filing.

The following graph compares cumulative total return of our common stock with the cumulative total return of (i) The Nasdaq Composite Index, and (ii) The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index. The graph assumes (a) $100 was invested on December 31, 2019 in each of our common stock, the stocks comprising the Nasdaq Composite Index and the stocks comprising the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, and (b) the reinvestment of dividends into shares of common stock; however, no dividends have been declared on our common stock to date.

Holders of Record

As of February 26, 2025, we had 41 holders of record of common stock. The number of holders of record is based upon the actual number of holders registered as of such date and does not include holders of shares in “street name” or persons, partnerships, associates, corporations or other entities in security position listings maintained by depositories.

Dividends

We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying in the foreseeable future, any cash dividends on our capital stock. Any future determination to declare cash dividends will be made at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, general business conditions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

None.

ITEM 6. [RESERVED]

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

This discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with our financial statements and accompanying notes included elsewhere in this report. Operating results are not necessarily indicative of results that may occur in future periods.

Overview

We are a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing first-in-class muscle activators and next-in-class muscle inhibitors as potential treatments for debilitating diseases in which muscle performance is compromised and/or declining. We have discovered and are developing muscle-directed investigational medicines that may potentially improve the healthspan of people with devastating cardiovascular and neuromuscular diseases of impaired muscle function. Our research and development activities relating to the biology of muscle function have evolved from our knowledge and expertise regarding the cytoskeleton, a complex biological infrastructure that plays a fundamental role within every human cell. As a leader in muscle biology and the mechanics of muscle performance, we are discovering and developing small molecule drug candidates specifically engineered to impact muscle function and contractility with objective to build a sustainable specialty biopharmaceutical business.

Our clinical-stage drug candidates are: (i) aficamten, a next-in-class cardiac myosin inhibitor, (ii) omecamtiv mecarbil, a novel cardiac myosin activator, (iii) CK-586, an additional cardiac myosin inhibitor, and (iv) CK-089, a novel fast skeletal troponin activator.

For further information regarding our business, refer to Part I, Item 1 (Business) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our cash, cash equivalents, and investments and a summary of our borrowings and working capital as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 are summarized as follows (in millions):

The following table shows a summary of our cash flows for the periods set forth below (in millions):

Sources and Uses of Cash

To date we have funded our operations and capital expenditures with proceeds primarily from private and public sales of our equity securities, royalty monetization agreement, and revenue interest agreements, strategic alliances, long-term debt, other financings and interest on investments. We have generated significant operating losses since our inception. Our expenditures have historically primarily related to research and development activities, but have recently and will increasingly also relate to our commercial readiness activities and general commercialization activities upon regulatory approval of aficamten.

Cash Flows Used in Operating Activities

Net cash used in operating activities of $395.9 million and $414.3 million for 2024 and 2023, respectively, was largely due to ongoing research and development activities and general and administrative expenses to support those activities. Net loss for 2024 and 2023 included, among other items: non-cash stock-based compensation, non-cash interest expense on liabilities related to revenue participation right purchase agreements, non-cash interest expense related to debt and non-cash changes in fair values related to derivative liabilities and liabilities related to RPI Transactions.

Cash Flows Used in Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities of $553.1 million for 2024 was primarily due to purchases of investments offset by maturities of investments.

Net cash used in investing activities of $239.3 million for 2023 was primarily due to sales and maturities of investments offset by purchases of investments.

Cash Flows Provided by Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities of $930.6 million in 2024 was due to $250.0 million in proceeds from the 2024 RPI Transactions, $563.2 million of net proceeds from a public offering, $50.0 million of net proceeds from a private placement, and issuances of common stock of $93.6 million under the Controlled Equity Offering Sales Agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald & Co, discussed below, and stock-based award activities.

Net cash provided by financing activities of $221.3 million in 2023 was due to proceeds from public offerings of common stock of $164.2 million under the Controlled Equity Offering Sales Agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald & Co discussed below and $50.0 million of additional consideration associated with the 2022 RP Aficamten Royalty Purchase Agreement which was paid to us in September 2023 and stock-based award activities.

2024 Royalty Pharma Transactions

In May 2024, we entered into a series of financing agreements with affiliates of Royalty Pharma, including the RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, the 2022 RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement Amendment, the RP Aficamten RPA Amendment, and the RP Stock Purchase Agreement for a private placement of common stock concurrent with our underwritten public offering of common stock.

The RP OM Loan Agreement provides for a loan in a principal amount of $100.0 million that was drawn at the closing with no remaining amounts available for disbursement. The loan under the RP OM Loan Agreement matures on the 10 year anniversary of the funding date and is repayable in quarterly installments, the amounts of which will depend on the occurrence of certain events related to the results and timing of COMET-HF and potential regulatory approvals of omecamtiv mecarbil, as follows:

The interest on this loan is included in the scheduled payment amount for each scenario.

Pursuant to the RP CK-586 RPA, RPI ICAV purchased rights to up to 4.5% of worldwide net sales of CK-586 by us, our affiliates or licensees, in exchange for up to $200 million in consideration, $50 million of which was paid upfront and, following the initiation of the first Phase 3 clinical trial (or the Phase 3 portion of the first Phase 2b/3 clinical trial) in HFpEF for CK-586, at RPI ICAV’s sole discretion, up to in aggregate $150 million to fund 50.0% of the research and development cost of CK-586. The initial $50 million paid to us entitles RPI ICAV to 1% of worldwide net sales of CK-586 by us, our affiliates, or licenses. We will not know for certain whether any additional funding under the RP CK-586 RPA will be available to us until the conclusion of AMBER-HFpEF, the results of the trial are known, and RPI ICAV has decided to exercise its option to purchase an incremental 3.5% revenue interest on our future annual worldwide net sales of CK-586 or not.

2022 Royalty Pharma Transactions

In January 2022, we entered into a series of financing agreements with affiliates of Royalty Pharma, including the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, and the RP Aficamten RPA.

Under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, we have drawn $100 million and an additional $350 million remains available to us for disbursement as long-term debt, subject to satisfaction of certain conditions. Of these available loans, we have satisfied the conditions to draw on the tranche 4 loan in the amount of $75 million upon receipt of positive results from SEQUOIA-HCM and tranche 5 in the amount of $100 million upon acceptance of the filing of our NDA for aficamten. We are obliged to draw at least $50 million of either the tranche 4 or tranche 5 facility by November 24, 2025. The remaining $175 million tranche 7 loan is subject to conditions related to the approval of our NDA for aficamten in patients with oHCM on or prior to December 31, 2025. We expect to draw all available loans under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement unless we are able to meet our financing requirements through more favorable funding sources. If, for any reason, we are unable to satisfy the conditions for disbursement of the remaining $175 million in available loans under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement, we would need to seek alternative debt or equity financing.

Each term loan under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement matures on the 10 year anniversary of the funding date for such term loan and is repayable in quarterly installments of principal, interest and fees commencing on the last business day of the seventh full calendar quarter following the calendar quarter of the applicable funding date for such term loan, with the aggregate amount payable in respect of each term loan (including interest and other applicable fees) equal to 190% of the principal amount of the tranche 1, tranche 4, tranche 5, tranche 6, and tranche 7 term loans (such amount with respect to each term loan, “Final Payment Amount”). We commenced repayment of the tranche 1 loan in the fourth quarter of 2023 and will continue to incur approximately $2.9 million in quarterly interest expenses for the tranche 1 loan until our repayment obligations are satisfied in full.

RP Aficamten Royalty Purchase Agreement

Under the RP Aficamten RPA, RPI ICAV purchased rights to certain revenue streams from net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten by us, our affiliates and our licensees in exchange for up to $150.0 million in consideration, $50.0 million of which was paid on the closing date, $50.0 million of which was paid to us in March 2022 following the initiation of the first pivotal trial in oHCM for aficamten, and $50.0 million of which was paid to us in September 2023 following the initiation of the first pivotal clinical trial in nHCM for aficamten.

RPI ICAV initially purchased the right to receive a percentage of net sales equal to 4.5% for annual worldwide net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten up to $1 billion and 3.5% for annual worldwide net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten in excess of $1 billion, subject to reduction in certain circumstances. However, in May 2024, we entered into the RP Aficamten RPA Amendment to restructure the royalty so that RPI will now receive 4.5% up to $5.0 billion of worldwide annual net sales of aficamten and 1% above $5.0 billion of worldwide annual net sales. Our liability to RPI ICAV is referred to as the “RP Aficamten Liability”.

We account for the RP Aficamten Liability as a liability primarily because we have significant continuing involvement in generating the related revenue stream from which the liability will be repaid. If and when aficamten is commercialized and royalties become due, we will recognize the portion of royalties paid to RPI ICAV as a decrease to the RP Aficamten Liability and a corresponding reduction in cash.

The carrying amount of the RP Aficamten Liability is based on our estimate of the future royalties to be paid to RPI ICAV over the life of the arrangement as discounted using an imputed rate of interest. The imputed rate of interest on the carrying value of the RP Aficamten Liability was approximately 23.5% and 24.8% as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

Convertible Notes

On November 13, 2019, we issued $138.0 million aggregate principal amount of 2026 Notes. On July 6, 2022, we issued $540.0 million aggregate principal amount of 2027 Notes and used approximately $140.3 million of the net proceeds from the offering of 2027 Notes and issued 8,071,343 shares of common stock to repurchase approximately $116.9 million aggregate principal amount of the 2026 Notes pursuant to privately negotiated exchange agreements entered into with certain holders of the 2026 Notes concurrently with the pricing of the offering of the 2027 Notes. As a result of the partial repurchase of the 2026 Notes, we recorded an inducement loss of $22.2 million, consisting of the difference between the consideration to the holders pursuant to the exchange agreements and the if-converted value of the 2026 Notes under the original terms. As of December 31, 2024, there remains $21.1 million aggregate principal amount of 2026 Notes outstanding and $540.0 million of aggregate principal amount of 2027 Notes outstanding. The 2026 Notes and the 2027 Notes are redeemable, at our option at any time in the case of the 2026 Notes and at any time after July 7, 2025 in the case of the 2027 Notes and, in the case of any partial redemption, on or before the 60th scheduled trading day before the maturity date for the relevant notes, at a cash redemption price equal to the principal amount of the relevant notes to be redeemed, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any, to, but excluding, the redemption date but only if the last reported sale price per share of our common stock exceeds 130% of the conversion price for the relevant notes on (1) each of at least 20 trading days, whether or not consecutive, during the 30 consecutive trading days ending on, and including, the trading day immediately before the date we may send the related redemption notice; and (2) the trading day immediately before the date we may send such notice.

China Out-license for Omecamtiv Mecarbil

In December 2021, we entered into the Corxel OM License Agreement, pursuant to which we granted to Corxel an exclusive license to develop and commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil in China and Taiwan. In December 2024, we entered into a mutual termination agreement with Corxel to terminate the Corxel OM License Agreement. Accordingly, all rights to develop and commercialize omecamtiv mecarbil have reverted to us.

China Out-license for Aficamten

In July 2020, we entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Corxel, pursuant to which we granted to Corxel an exclusive license to develop and commercialize aficamten in China and Taiwan. In December 2024, Corxel assigned its rights and obligations under our license and collaboration agreement to Genzyme Corporation, an affiliate of Sanofi. We recognized $15.0 million dollars from Corxel in connection with a modification of the original license prior to the assignment of Corxel's rights under our license and collaboration agreement for the development and commercialization of aficamten to Sanofi and we may be eligible for another $10.0 million milestone from Corxel under certain commercial circumstances. We may be eligible to receive from Sanofi future milestone payments totaling up to $150.0 million for the achievement of certain development and commercial milestone events in connection to aficamten in oHCM and/or nHCM. In addition, Sanofi will pay us tiered royalties in the low-to-high teens range on the net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten in China and Taiwan, subject to certain reductions for generic competition, patent expiration and payments for licenses to third party patents. The Sanofi Aficamten License Agreement, unless terminated earlier, will continue on a market-by-market basis until expiration of the relevant royalty term.

Japan Out-license for Aficamten

In November 2024, we entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Bayer Consumer Care AG, an affiliate of Bayer AG, pursuant to which we granted to Bayer an exclusive license to develop and commercialize aficamten in Japan, subject to certain reserved development rights. Under the terms of the Bayer License Agreement, we received an up-front payment of €50.0 million (equivalent to $52.4 million at the time of payment) which was recorded as deferred revenue at December 31, 2024 and will be recognized upon the completion of certain performance obligations. We expect to fulfill and satisfy the associated performance obligation in the first half of 2025. We may be eligible to receive from Bayer future milestone payments totaling up to an additional €90 million upon achievement of milestones through commercial launch, including €20 million of which are near-term. We may also be eligible to receive up to an additional €490 million in commercial milestone payments upon the achievement by Bayer of certain sales milestones and tiered royalties on the net sales of pharmaceutical products containing aficamten in Japan ranging from the high teens to the low thirty percents, subject to certain reductions for generic competition, expiration of certain patents and payments for licenses to third-party patents, until the latest of the expiration of certain patents, the expiration of regulatory exclusivity for the Product in Japan, and the end of a minimum specified term.

For collaborative agreements that have a performance obligation where the counterparty is a customer for the unit of account, we apply ASC 606, Revenue Recognition, to the unit of account and the revenue is classified as License and milestone revenue in our consolidated statement of operations. For other transactions in collaborative arrangements, consisting of research and development cost reimbursements, we recognize the research and development cost reimbursements as collaboration revenues in our consolidated statement of operations.

At-the-Market Sales of Common Stock

In March 2023, we entered into the Amended ATM Facility, with Cantor, under which we may offer and sell, from time to time at our sole discretion, shares of our common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $300.0 million through Cantor, as sales agent. We issued 5,016,170 and 1,237,460 shares of our common stock for net proceeds of $164.2 million and $93.6 million in 2023 and 2024, respectively, under the Amended ATM Facility. We exercised our rights to terminate the Amended ATM Facility with Cantor in February 2024.

On February 27, 2025, we entered into an Open Market Sale AgreementSM with Jefferies LLC under which we may offer and sell, from time to time, at our sole discretion, shares of common stock in “at the market offerings” pursuant to Rule 415(a)(4) under the Securities Act of 1933 through Jefferies LLC, as sales agent.

Public Offering of Common Stock and Concurrent Private Offering

On May 28, 2024, we closed an underwritten public offering of 9,803,922 shares of Common Stock at a public offering price of $51.00 per share, which included the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase up to 1,470,588 shares of Common Stock at the public offering price. The gross proceeds to the Company from the offering were approximately $575 million and net proceeds were approximately $563.2 million, after deducting the applicable underwriting discounts and commissions. Concurrently with the closing of the underwritten public offering, RPI ICAV purchased 980,392 shares of Common Stock pursuant to the RP Stock Purchase Agreement, at a price of $51.00 per share in a concurrent private placement. The gross proceeds from the concurrent private placement were $50 million.

Future Uses of Cash

We expect that general and administrative expenses will significantly increase in 2025. We have submitted an NDA to FDA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM, which was accepted for filing with a PDUFA target action date of September 26, 2025. Accordingly, we will be incurring expenses for the purpose of commercial readiness activities, including, but not limited to, the hiring and training of a field sales force, the implementation of compliance systems and sales and marketing expenses. In addition, we submitted an MAA to EMA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM in the fourth quarter of 2024, which was validated by EMA, and therefore, we will be incurring similar expenses for commercial readiness activities in Europe but with additional expenses for the establishment of a corporate infrastructure to enable commercialization activities in key European markets. A significant portion of these anticipated commercial readiness expenses in the United States and Europe are not expenses that have been reflected in our financial statements for previous periods.

In future periods, we also expect to incur substantial costs as we continue to expand our research programs and related research and development activities, including for the conduct of our on-going clinical trials for aficamten, omecamtiv mecarbil, CK-586 and CK-089. We expect to incur significant research and development expenses as we advance the research and development of compounds from our other muscle biology programs through research to candidate selection to clinical development, and we expect to file investigational new drug applications. Cytokinetics and multiple third-party contract development manufacturing organizations entered into various scopes of work with respect to the manufacturing of aficamten.

Our future capital uses and requirements depend on numerous factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following:

We have incurred an accumulated deficit of approximately $2.7 billion since inception and there can be no assurance that we will attain profitability. We are subject to risks common to clinical-stage companies including, but not limited to, development of new drug candidates, dependence on key personnel, and the ability to obtain additional capital as needed to fund our future plans. Our liquidity will be impaired if sufficient additional capital is not available on terms acceptable to us, if at all. Until we achieve profitable operations, we intend to continue to fund operations through payments from strategic collaborations, additional sales of equity securities, grants and other financings. We have never generated revenues from commercial sales of our drugs. The earliest we might reasonably expect to commence commercial sales and record revenues is in 2025 following the acceptance for filing of our NDA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM by FDA in September of 2024. Therefore, our success is dependent on our ability to obtain additional capital by entering into new strategic collaborations and/or through financings, and ultimately on our and our collaborators’ ability to successfully develop and market one or more of our drug candidates. We cannot be certain that sufficient funds will be available from such collaborators or financings when needed or on satisfactory terms. Additionally, there can be no assurance that any of our drug candidates will be accepted in the marketplace or that any future products can be developed or manufactured at an acceptable cost. These factors could have a material adverse effect on our future financial results, financial position and cash flows.

Based on the current planning assumptions, we believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents, investments and interest earned on investments will be sufficient to meet our projected operating requirements for at least the next 12 months. If, at any time, our prospects for internally financing programs and activities decline, we may decide to reduce expenses across the business. Alternatively, we might raise funds through strategic relationships, public or private financings or other arrangements. There can be no assurance that funding, if needed, will be available on attractive terms, or at all, or in accordance with our planned timelines. Furthermore, financing obtained through future strategic relationships may require us to forego certain commercialization and other rights to our drug candidates. Similarly, any additional equity financing may be dilutive to stockholders and debt financing, if available, may involve restrictive covenants. Our failure to raise capital as and when needed could have a negative impact on our financial condition and our ability to pursue our business strategy.

Segment Information

We have one primary business activity and operate in one reportable segment.

Results of Operations

A discussion of our results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2022 and year-to-year comparisons between 2023 and 2022 can be found in Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our 2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K under the heading "Results of Operations."

Revenues

Our revenues since inception were primarily from our strategic alliances. We have not generated any revenue from commercial product sales to date. The earliest we might reasonably expect to commence commercial sales and obtain revenues is in 2025 following the acceptance for filing of our NDA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM by FDA in September 2024.

Revenues in 2024, 2023, and 2022 were as follows (in millions):

License and milestone revenues recognized in 2024 were attributable to a $15.0 million non-refundable upfront payment from Corxel in the fourth quarter of 2024 in connection with a modification of the original license prior to the assignment of Corxel’s rights under our license and collaboration agreement for the development and commercialization of aficamten in China and Taiwan to Sanofi. The $15.0 million is reflected as a receivable at December 31, 2024. License and milestone revenues for 2023 consisted of a milestone recognized from Corxel for the initiation of our Phase 3 clinical trial of aficamten in nHCM.

Collaboration revenues in 2024 were primarily from Corxel under our collaboration and license agreement with Corxel (now assigned to Genzyme Corporation, an affiliate of Sanofi). As of December 31, 2024 receivables of $1.5 million were recorded related to Corxel. In 2023, Collaboration revenues were primarily from Astellas for reimbursements under the Astellas FSRA Agreement. Under the Astellas FSRA Agreement, Astellas agreed to pay one-third of the out-of-pocket clinical development costs which was incurred in connection with the Company’s Phase 3 clinical trial of reldesemtiv in ALS, up to a maximum contribution by Astellas of $12 million. On March 31, 2023, we announced that we would be discontinuing COURAGE-ALS, our Phase 3 clinical trial of reldesemtiv in patients with ALS, and COURAGE-ALS OLE. As of December 31, 2023 we billed and collected the maximum contribution of $12.0 million from Astellas, and no further revenue is expected under this arrangement.

In November 2024, we entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Bayer Consumer Care AG, an affiliate of Bayer AG, pursuant to which we granted to Bayer an exclusive license to develop and commercialize aficamten in Japan, subject to certain reserved development rights. Under the terms of the Bayer License Agreement, we received an up-front payment of €50.0 million (equivalent to $52.4 million at the time of payment) which was recorded as deferred revenue at December 31, 2024 and will be recognized upon the completion of certain performance obligations. We expect to fulfill and satisfy the associated performance obligation in the first half of 2025.

Research and Development Expenses

We incur research and development expenses associated with both partnered and our own research activities, which we finance from our own cash-on-hand, financing arrangements with third parties, and reimbursement from our collaboration partners

Research and development expenses related to any development activities we elect to fund consist primarily of employee compensation, supplies and materials, costs for consultants and contract research and manufacturing, facilities costs and depreciation of equipment.

Research and development expenses for 2024, 2023, and 2022 were as follows (in millions):

Research and development expenses increased to $339.4 million in 2024 from $330.1 million in 2023, primarily due to advancing our clinical trials and higher personnel related costs.

We continue to develop aficamten to treat both oHCM and nHCM in three additional clinical trials, as follows: (i) MAPLE-HCM is our Phase 3 clinical trial of aficamten as a monotherapy for patients with oHCM, (ii) ACACIA-HCM is a Phase 3 clinical trial for patients with symptomatic nHCM, and (iii) CEDAR-HCM, our placebo-controlled and open-label extension clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy, pharmacokinetics (PK) and safety of aficamten in a pediatric population with symptomatic oHCM. Additionally, we have FOREST-HCM which is an open label extension study designed to assess the long term safety and tolerability of aficamten in patients with symptomatic oHCM.

We continue to develop omecamtiv mecarbil in COMET-HF, a Phase 3 clinical trial of omecamtiv mecarbil in patients with symptomatic HFrEF with severely reduced ejection fraction. The intention of the $100 million RP OM Loan Agreement was to partially cover the costs of the COMET-HF clinical trial.

We recently announced our commencement of AMBER-HFpEF, a Phase 2 clinical trial of CK-586 in patients with symptomatic HFpEF, in which patient enrollment commenced in the first quarter of 2025. The $50 million in proceeds from the RP CK-586 RPA are intended to offset expenses related to the conduct of AMBER-HFpEF. If the results of AMBER-HFpEF are supportive of continuing the development of CK-586 and commencing a Phase 3 clinical trial, we expect to Royalty Pharma to cover potentially 50% of the continued development of CK-586 up to $150 million, subject to Royalty Pharma’s opt-in right to acquire an additional 3.5% revenue interest in our or our licensee’s future worldwide net sales of CK-586.

Finally, we also recently announced commencement of our Phase 1 single and multiple ascending dose clinical study of CK-089, a fast skeletal muscle troponin activator with the potential therapeutic application to a specific type of muscular dystrophy and other conditions of impaired muscle function.

We expect that research and development expenses will increase in 2025 relative to 2024 due to ongoing clinical trials of aficamten, COMET in HFrEF, AMBER HFpEF, manufacturing of drug product and raw materials for aficamten to enable a potential commercial launch and employee related costs.

General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation for employees in executive and administrative functions, including, but not limited to, finance, human resources, legal, business and commercial development and strategic planning. Other significant costs include facilities costs, consulting costs and professional fees for accounting and legal services, including legal services associated with obtaining and maintaining patents and regulatory compliance.

General and administrative expenses by program for 2024, 2023, and 2022 were as follows (in millions):

General and administrative expenses increased to $215.3 million in 2024 from $173.6 million in 2023, primarily due to investments in commercial readiness and higher personnel related costs, including stock based compensation.

We expect that general and administrative expenses will increase in 2025. We have submitted an NDA to FDA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM. Accordingly, we will be incurring additional expenses for commercial readiness activities, included, but not limited to, the hiring and training of a field sales force, the implementation of compliance systems, sales and marketing expenses. In addition. we submitted an MAA to EMA for aficamten for the treatment of oHCM in the fourth quarter of 2024, and therefore, we will be incurring similar expenses for commercial readiness activities in Europe but with additional expenses for the establishment of a corporate infrastructure to enable commercialization activities in key European markets.

Interest Expense

Interest expense for 2024, 2023, and 2022 were as follows (in millions):

The components of interest expense were fairly consistent period over period in 2024 and 2023. The most significant change was related to Term loan interest expense increasing due to drawing on Tranche 6 of the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement Amendment in the second quarter of 2024. Interest expense in 2024 also included approximately $4.8 million of financing fees related to the 2024 RPI Transactions.

We expect our interest expenses in 2025 to increase under the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement as we draw upon additional loans available to us thereunder.

Non-cash interest expense on liabilities related to revenue participation right purchase agreements

Non-cash interest expense results from the accretion of our liabilities to RPFT and RP ICAV related to the sale of future royalties under the RP OM RPA and the RP Aficamten RPA, respectively.

The carrying amount of the RP Aficamten Liability is based on our estimate of the future royalties to be paid pursuant to RP Aficamten RPA over the life of the arrangement as discounted using an imputed rate of interest. In the second quarter of 2024, we recorded an additional $33.3 million to the carrying value related to the RP Aficamten RPA Amendment entered into May 22, 2024. The imputed rate of interest on the carrying value of the RP Aficamten Liability was approximately 23.5% as of December 31, 2024 and 24.8% as of December 31, 2023.

The carrying amount of the RP OM Liability is based on our estimate of the future royalties to be paid pursuant to RP OM RPA over the life of the arrangement as discounted using an imputed rate of interest. The excess of future estimated royalty payments over the $92.3 million of allocated proceeds, less issuance costs, is recognized as non-cash interest expense using the effective interest method. The imputed rate of interest on the carrying value of the RP OM Liability was approximately 0.1% as of December 31, 2024 and 0.1% as of December 31, 2023.

We review our assumptions on a regular basis and our estimates may change in the future as we refine and reassess our assumptions.

Non-cash interest expense on the liabilities related to the RP OM RPA and the RP Aficamten RPA for 2024, 2023, and 2022 was as follows (in millions):

Interest and Other Income, net

Interest and other income, net for 2024, 2023, and 2022 consisted primarily of interest income generated from our cash, cash equivalents and investments.

Change in fair value liabilities related to RPI transactions and derivative liabilities reflected on the Consolidated Statement of Operations

The change in fair value liabilities related to the RPI transactions (RP OM Loan Agreement and CK-586 RPA) and the derivative liabilities for the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement for 2024 were as follows (in millions):

The fair values of the liabilities related to RPI transactions (RP OM Loan Agreement and CK-586 RPA) are based on significant unobservable inputs, including the probability of clinical success and regulatory approval based on historical industry success rates for product development specific to cardiovascular products, the estimated date of a product launch, estimates of pricing, sales ramp, variables for the timing of the related events, probability of change of control, and discount rates (which range from 10% to 18% as of December 31, 2024), which are deemed to be Level 3 inputs in the fair value hierarchy. As products containing omecamtiv mecarbil and CK-586 have not yet been commercialized, the estimates are highly subjective. For example, assumed increases in the probability of the clinical success for the omecamtiv mecarbil or CK-586 programs could increase the value of the liabilities. Similarly, assumed decreases in the discount rates used in the fair value measurements could also increase the value of the liabilities at period end.

The fair values of the derivative liabilities is determined using the probability-weighted expected return method and the “with and without” method. The fair values are based on significant unobservable inputs, including the probability of change of control, the probability of default (less than 10%), discount rates (ranging from 10% to 16% as of December 31, 2024) and other factors.

The total change in the estimated fair value liabilities for 2024, was primarily due to a decrease in the discount rates used in the measurement of the 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement and the RP CK-586 RPA as of December 31, 2024, compared to June 30, 2024. This decrease resulted in an increase in the estimated fair value of the liabilities and the recognition of a loss on the change in fair value of liabilities related to RPI transactions of approximately $19.6 million for 2024.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Estimates

Our discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based on our financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities and expenses and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We review our estimates on an ongoing basis. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. While our significant accounting policies are described in more detail in the notes to our financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we believe the following accounting policies to be critical to the judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our financial statements In May 2024, the Company entered into 2024 RPI transactions including the 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, the RP Stock Purchase Agreement, the 2022 RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement Amendment and the RP Aficamten RPA Amendment.

Fair Value of 2024 RPI transactions

As permitted under Accounting Standards Codification 825, Financial Instruments, or ASC 825, the Company elected the fair value option for recognition of the liabilities related to 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement and the RP CK-586 RPA. In accordance with ASC 825, the Company records the liabilities at fair value and remeasures the liabilities at fair value each reporting period with changes in fair value associated with non-credit components are recognized in Other income (expense), net, while the change in fair value associated with credit components is recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss. The fair value of the liabilities is based on significant unobservable inputs, including the probability of clinical success, the probability of regulatory approval, the estimated date of a product launch, estimates of pricing, sales ramp, variables for the timing of the related events, probability of change of control, discount rates and other estimates, which are deemed to be Level 3 inputs in the fair value hierarchy. As products containing omecamtiv mecarbil and CK-586 have not yet been commercialized, the estimates are highly subjective. As of December 31, 2024, the discount rates that we used in the measurement of the 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement and the RP CK-586 RPA decreased compared to June 30, 2024, which resulted in an increase in the estimated fair value of the liabilities and the recognition of a loss on the change in the fair value of liabilities related to RPI transactions in our consolidated statement of operations of approximately $19.6 million in 2024. See Note 3 — Agreements with Royalty Pharma for further detail.

Derivative Liabilities

We recognize liabilities of our embedded derivative instruments related to the RP Multi Tranche Loan at fair value in the consolidated balance sheets. Each period, the fair value of the derivative liabilities are recalculated and resulting gains and losses from the changes in fair value of the derivatives with non-credit components are recognized in income, while the change in fair value associated with credit components is recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss. Estimating fair values of derivative instruments requires the development of significant and subjective estimates that may, and are likely to, change over the duration of the instrument with related changes in internal and external market factors. Since derivative instruments are initially and subsequently carried at fair value, the Company’s income will reflect the volatility in these estimate and assumption changes.

Revenue Participation Right Purchase Agreements

We have entered into certain revenue participation right purchase agreements for omecamtiv mecarbil, aficamten, and CK-586 with affiliates of Royalty Pharma, pursuant to which such affiliates purchased rights to royalties from certain revenue streams. We typically account for such agreements as liabilities to be amortized under the effective interest rate method over the life of the related royalty stream, when we have continuing involvement with the underlying research and development activities. We typically account for such agreements as deferred income to be amortized under the units-of-revenue method, when there is no continuing involvement with the underlying research and development activities. We are required to update our estimates, each reporting period, related to the amount and timing of future royalty payments to be paid to the counterparties of the revenue participation right purchase agreements. The estimates of the future royalty payment determine the measurement of the non-cash interest expense and the carrying value of the liability.

Revenue participation right purchase agreements are measured using significant unobservable inputs. The estimates of future royalties requires the use of several assumptions such as: the probability of clinical success, the probability of regulatory approval, the estimated date of a product launch, estimates of eligible patient populations, estimates of prescribing behavior and patient behavior, estimates of pricing, payor reimbursement and coverage, and sales ramp. As products containing aficamten, omecamtiv mecarbil and CK-586 have not yet been commercialized, the estimates are highly subjective.

The carrying amount of the liabilities are based on our estimate of the future royalties to be paid over the life of the arrangements as discounted using an imputed rate of interest. The imputed rate of interest on the RP Aficamten Liability was approximately 23.5% as of December 31, 2024 and 24.8% as of December 31, 2023. The imputed rate of interest on the RP OM Liability was approximately 0.1% as of December 31, 2024 and 0.1% as of December 31, 2023. We periodically assess the amount and timing of expected royalty payments and account for any changes in such estimates on a prospective basis.

As of December 31, 2024, we have a total carrying value of approximately $462.2 million of liabilities related to revenue participation right purchase agreements.

Accrued Research and Development Expenditures

Clinical trial costs are a component of research and development expense. We accrue and expense clinical trial activities performed by third parties based upon actual work completed in accordance with agreements established with clinical research and manufacturing organizations and clinical sites. We determine the actual costs through monitoring patient enrollment, communications with internal personnel and external service providers regarding the progress or stage of completion of trials or services and the agreed-upon fee to be paid for such services.

ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK

We are exposed to market risks in the ordinary course of our business. These risks primarily include risk related to interest rate sensitivities.

Interest Rate Risk

We are exposed to market risk related to changes in interest rates. As of December 31, 2024, our cash and investments totaled $1221.1 million, comprising U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. and non-U.S. government agency bonds, commercial paper, a global portfolio of corporate debt, money market funds, and repurchase agreements backed by U.S. Treasury securities.

Our investments are subject to interest rate risk and could fall in value if market interest rates increase. We have not been exposed to, nor do we anticipate being exposed to, material risks due to changes in interest rates. A hypothetical 1% increase in market interest rates would result in a decline in the value of our investments of approximately $6.1 million and $2.4 million as of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, respectively.

In addition, we have elected the fair value option for certain liabilities. The fair value of the liabilities related to 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, and the derivatives of the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement will increase as market interest rates decrease. In addition, the fair value of the liabilities may fluctuate based upon changes in the Company’s credit rating. Changes in the interest rate environment and the credit rating of the Company could have an effect on our future earnings. For example, a hypothetical 1% decrease in the discount rates used to measure the 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement, the RP CK-586 RPA, and the derivatives of the RP Multi Tranche Loan Agreement would result an increase in the fair value, and the recognition of a loss, of approximately $5.4 million as of December 31, 2024. In 2024, we recognized a loss on the change in the estimated fair value of liabilities of approximately $19.6 million, primarily due to changes in the discount rates used to measure the 2024 RP OM Loan Agreement and the RP CK-586 RPA. The discount rates ranged from 10% to 18% as of December 31, 2024, compared to 14% to 18% as of June 30, 2024, resulting in an increase in the estimated fair value of the liabilities.

We had $21.1 million under 2026 Notes with a fixed rate of 4.0% and $540.0 million under 2027 Notes with a fixed rate of 3.5% outstanding as of December 31, 2024. The convertible notes issued at fixed interest rates are exposed to fluctuations in fair value resulting from changes in market price and interest rates. We do not record our convertible debt at fair value but present the fair value for disclosure purposes (see Note 7 to our Consolidated Financial Statements). As of December 31, 2024, the fair value of the 2026 Notes and 2027 Notes was estimated at $95.1 million and $651.7 million using quoted market prices.

ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

The Board of Directors and Stockholders

Cytokinetics, Incorporated

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

/s/ Ernst & Young LLP

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2018.

San Jose, California

February 27, 2025

CYTOKINETICS, INCORPORATED

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(In thousands, except share and per share data)