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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, DC 20549

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FORM 10-K

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(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

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

For the transition period from __________________ to __________________

Commission file number: 001-39421

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ORCHESTRA BIOMED HOLDINGS, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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150 Union Square Drive

New Hope, Pennsylvania 18938

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (215) 862-5797

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

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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 every 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.

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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 aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates as of June 30, 2024 the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter was approximately $124.5 million as computed by reference to the closing price of the common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market on that date.

As of March 27, 2025, the registrant had 38,312,512 shares of common stock, $0.0001 par value per share, outstanding.

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DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Part III of this report incorporates information by reference from the Company's definitive proxy statement, which proxy statement is due to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission not later than 120 days after December 31, 2024.

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Table of Contents

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Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the “Company,” “Orchestra,” “we,” “us,” “our” and similar terms refer to Orchestra BioMed Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation formerly known as Health Sciences Acquisitions Corporation 2, and its consolidated subsidiaries. “Legacy Orchestra” refers to Orchestra BioMed, Inc., the private Delaware corporation that is now our wholly owned subsidiary. References to “HSAC2” refer to Health Sciences Acquisitions Corporation 2, our predecessor company prior to the consummation of the Business Combination (as defined herein).

Certain information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K relates to or is based on studies, publications, surveys and other data obtained from third-party sources and our own internal estimates and research. While we believe these third-party sources to be reliable as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we have not independently verified the market and industry data contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or the underlying assumptions relied on therein. Finally, while we believe our own internal research is reliable, such research has not been verified by any independent source. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we are liable for the information provided in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those referred to in “Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties and by us.

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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this report, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, business strategy, product candidates, planned preclinical studies and clinical trials, results of clinical trials, research and development costs, regulatory approvals, timing, and likelihood of success, as well as plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that are in some cases beyond our control and may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements contained in this report include, but are not limited to, statements about:

We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about our business, the industry in which we operate and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects, and these forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or development. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions described under the heading “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in our forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. We do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of any new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

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 report, 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 you are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.

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SUMMARY OF RISK FACTORS

The following is a summary of some of the risks and uncertainties that could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. This summary should be read together with the more detailed description of each risk factor disclosed under “Item 1A Risk Factors” contained in Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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PART I

Item 1. Business

Our Vision

Our vision is to accelerate medical innovation to patients through risk-reward-sharing partnerships with leading medical device companies.

Our Company

We are a biomedical innovation company accelerating high-impact technologies to patients through risk-reward sharing partnerships with leading medical device companies. Our partnership-enabled business model focuses on forging strategic collaborations with leading medical device companies to drive successful global commercialization of products we develop. We are led by a highly accomplished, multidisciplinary management team and a board of directors with extensive experience in all phases of therapeutic device development. Our business was formed in 2018 by assembling a pipeline of multiple late-stage clinical product candidates originally developed by our founding team. Our flagship product candidates are Atrioventricular Interval Modulation (“AVIM”) therapy (formerly referred to as BackBeat Cardiac Neuromodulation Therapy (“BackBeat CNT”)) for the treatment of hypertension (“HTN”), the leading risk factor for death worldwide and the Virtue Sirolimus AngioInfusion Balloon (“Virtue SAB”) for the treatment of atherosclerotic artery disease, the leading cause of mortality worldwide. We have an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with Medtronic, Inc. for the development and commercialization of AVIM therapy for the treatment of HTN in patients indicated for a cardiac pacemaker. We have a strategic collaboration with Terumo Corporation and Terumo Medical Corporation (collectively, “Terumo”) for the development and commercialization of Virtue SAB for the treatment of coronary and peripheral artery disease.

On January 26, 2023, we consummated the business combination contemplated by the Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of July 4, 2022 (as amended, the “Merger Agreement”), by and among HSAC2, a special purpose acquisition company incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted company in 2020 (“HSAC2”), HSAC Olympus Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of HSAC2 (“Merger Sub”), and Orchestra BioMed, Inc. (“Legacy Orchestra”). Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, (i) HSAC2 deregistered in the Cayman Islands in accordance with the Companies Act (2022 Revision) (As Revised) of the Cayman Islands and domesticated as a Delaware corporation in accordance with Section 388 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “Domestication”) and (ii) Merger Sub merged with and into Legacy Orchestra, with Legacy Orchestra as the surviving company in the merger and, after giving effect to such merger, continuing as a wholly owned subsidiary of Orchestra (the “Merger” and, together with the Domestication and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, the “Business Combination”). As part of the Domestication, the Company’s name was changed from “Health Sciences Acquisitions Corporation 2” to “Orchestra BioMed Holdings, Inc.”

Our Flagship Candidates

AVIM Therapy

Atrioventricular Interval Modulation (“AVIM”) therapy is a bioelectronic therapy candidate designed to immediately, substantially and persistently lower blood pressure. AVIM therapy can be fully integrated as a firmware upgrade to standard cardiac pacemakers which, given HTN is the most common comorbidity in the pacemaker population affecting over 70% of the pacemaker-indicated patients, makes it a potentially attractive therapeutic solution for these patients.

On June 30, 2022, we entered into an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with Medtronic, one of the largest medical device companies in the world, for the development of AVIM therapy for the treatment of HTN in pacemaker-indicated patients (the “Medtronic Collaboration”). The Medtronic Collaboration provides us with development, clinical and regulatory support for the BACKBEAT (BradycArdia paCemaKer with AVIM for Blood prEssure treAtmenT) global pivotal study (“BACKBEAT study”). Upon regulatory approval, if received, Medtronic will have the exclusive global rights to commercialize AVIM therapy for this target population.

If AVIM therapy is approved and successfully commercialized, we will share meaningfully in the revenues generated from Medtronic’s sale of AVIM-enabled pacing systems. Medtronic has a right of first negotiation with respect to AVIM therapy for the treatment of HTN in non-pacemaker patients.

While there is no guarantee that AVIM therapy will prove to safe and effective, AVIM therapy previously showed encouraging results in MODERATO II study, a prospective, multi-center, randomized, double-blind pilot study of pacemaker patients with persistent HTN (the “MODERATO II study)”. We estimate that the addressable annual market for pacemaker-indicated patients with HTN comprises more than 750,000 patients worldwide annually and represents a potential annual revenue opportunity of over $2 billion. We also believe AVIM therapy may offer therapeutic benefits to HTN patients not yet indicated for a pacemaker who have uncontrolled systolic blood pressure despite medical therapy and have high cardiovascular risk factors such as Isolated System Hypertension (“ISH”), Diastolic Dysfunction (“DD”) and additional serious medical comorbidities. We estimate that this additional addressable annual market for select patients with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk not yet indicated for a pacemaker comprises at least 3.7 million patients worldwide in 2025, or approximately 0.3% of the global HTN population.

On September 19, 2023, we announced that the FDA granted us investigational device exemption (“IDE”) approval to initiate the BACKBEAT study to treat HTN in patients indicated for a pacemaker. The study is a double-blind, randomized study that is expected to enroll a total of 500 patients that have previously been implanted with a Medtronic dual-chamber pacemaker and have blood pressure above target despite medical therapy at up to 100 clinical sites worldwide. Patients will be randomized 1:1 to AVIM therapy plus medical therapy (treatment) as compared to medical therapy alone (control). On January 8, 2024, we announced that the first patient was enrolled and randomized into the BACKBEAT study. During the third quarter of 2024, we implemented an FDA-approved amendment to the BACKBEAT study protocol for existing and newly activated study sites. The protocol amendment is intended to improve patient engagement processes and significantly expand the window for screening and enrolling patients. Specifically, the updated protocol allows patients to consent and have initial blood pressure assessment prior to pacemaker implant and be screened and enrolled 30 days prior to and up to 365 days post-implant procedure. Previously, patients could not consent prior to implant and could only be screened and enrolled up to 90 days post-implant, substantially limiting the pool of eligible patients. The updated protocol also streamlines site coordinator and patient visit activities. We currently estimate completion of enrollment of the BACKBEAT study in the first half of 2026; however, there is no assurance that our current operating plan will be achieved. For a detailed description of the BACKBEAT study, see “—BIOELECTRONIC PRODUCT CANDIDATES —AVIM Therapy for Hypertension and CNT-HF for Heart Failure—Clinical Results—Clinical, Regulatory and Commercialization Pathway—The BACKBEAT Global Pivotal Study.”

Recent Data Announcement: Retrospective Analysis from MODERATO II

In February 2025, we announced results from a retrospective analysis of MODERATO II study data which demonstrated a favorable impact of AVIM therapy on echocardiographic (“Echo”) markers of diastolic dysfunction, (“DD”), a key driver of heart failure progression. The results were presented as late-breaking science at the Technology and Heart Failure Therapeutics (“THT”) 2025 Conference. HTN is the leading cause of DD; both conditions are common in older patients and contribute to the development of heart failure.

The retrospective, treatment-blinded analysis of the MODERATO II study assessed the impact of 6 months of AVIM therapy on systolic blood pressure (“SBP”) and Echo markers of DD using core lab Echos with independent blinded adjudication. Patients were classified as with DD (“DD+”) or without DD (“DD-”) as determined pursuant to​ the American Society of Echocardiography Guidelines. From the MODERATO II study cohort (n=47), 36 patients had technically sufficient Echo data, and 61% of this group (22/36) had Echo evidence of DD.

Using key measures of diastolic function, AVIM therapy:

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These findings provide further evidence that AVIM therapy, in addition to significantly reducing systolic blood pressure, may also favorably influence ventricular function in important ways for patients with DD and at risk for heart failure.

Virtue SAB

Virtue SAB is a proprietary drug/device combination product candidate for the treatment of artery disease that is designed to deliver a proprietary, investigational, extended-release formulation of sirolimus (“SirolimusEFR”) to the vessel wall during balloon angioplasty without the need for balloon coating or a permanent implant. Although the safety and efficacy profile has not yet been established by any regulatory body, Virtue SAB demonstrated promising three-year clinical data in the treatment of coronary In-Stent Restenosis (“ISR”) in the prospective, multi-center SABRE Study.

Virtue SAB was granted Breakthrough Device designation by the FDA, for specific indications relating to the treatment of coronary ISR, coronary small vessel disease and peripheral artery disease below-the-knee. We estimate that these indications will represent an annual global addressable market opportunity of at least $4 billion, based on approximately 3.2 million procedures, as discussed below under “— INTERVENTIONAL THERAPIES — Virtue SAB for Artery Disease and SirolimusEFR for Local Inflammation in Multiple Indications. — Targeted Unmet Needs and Market Opportunity for Virtue SAB.”

We have a strategic partnership with Terumo, a global leader in medical technology, for the development and commercialization of Virtue SAB to treat coronary artery disease (“CAD”) or peripheral artery disease (“PAD”). Under the current terms of our partnership, it is expected that Terumo will assume financial and execution responsibility for substantially all future clinical and regulatory development, with the exception of the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study, for which we are responsible. Terumo will also be responsible for device manufacturing, commercial sales, marketing and distribution for Virtue SAB for coronary and peripheral vascular indications globally. If Virtue SAB is successfully developed and approved, we will share meaningfully in future commercial revenues of Virtue SAB through double-digit royalties on net sales and per unit payments as the exclusive supplier of SirolimusEFR. However, we and Terumo are currently pursuing mediation with respect to the Terumo Agreement. See “Overview—Recent Developments” in Item 7 (Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

On August 8, 2023, we announced that the FDA granted us IDE approval with conditions to initiate a randomized pivotal study evaluating the efficacy and safety of Virtue SAB in comparison to plain balloon angioplasty for the treatment of patients with coronary ISR. The conditional approval permits us to initiate enrollment of the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study following completion of clinical trial initiation activities, including clinical center Institutional Review Board approvals. We are also required to submit additional information to the FDA.

In March 2024, the FDA approved Boston Scientific Corporation’s AGENT™ paclitaxel-coated balloon for the treatment of coronary ISR. As a result of this approval, we believe there will be robust additional reimbursement available, supporting an average selling price for AGENT that we estimate to be more than $5,500, based on published Boston Scientific analyst reports. In addition, we expect there will be strong physician interest to utilize the AGENT balloon. We have, therefore, elected to pursue an updated design for the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study. Following discussions with FDA, we now plan for the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study to randomize approximately 740 patients 1:1 to either treatment with Virtue SAB or AGENT with a primary efficacy and safety endpoint of statistical non-inferiority of target lesion failure (“TLF”) at 12 months post index treatment alternative. We currently expect to receive FDA approval for an amended IDE in the first half of 2025 and are targeting initiation of enrollment of the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study in the second half of 2025. We may elect to initiate enrollment regardless of the status or outcome of our negotiations with Terumo.

History of Caliber and BackBeat

We were incorporated in Delaware in January 2017 and were formed to acquire operating and other assets as well as to raise capital to support further development of acquired assets. We had limited activity in 2017. In May 2018, we concurrently completed a recapitalization and mergers with Caliber Therapeutics, Inc., a Delaware corporation that has, among other things, the rights to the Virtue SAB product candidate and BackBeat Medical, Inc., a Delaware corporation that has, among other things, the rights to the AVIM therapy product candidate. Caliber Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in October 2005 and began development of its lead product candidate, Virtue SAB, in 2008. BackBeat Medical, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in January 2010 and began development of its lead product candidate, AVIM therapy, that same year.

Conversion of Caliber and BackBeat Limited Liability Companies

On December 26, 2019, we completed the conversions of Caliber Therapeutics, Inc., a Delaware corporation, to Caliber Therapeutics, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, and BackBeat Medical, Inc., a Delaware corporation, to BackBeat Medical, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. References in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “Caliber” refer to Caliber Therapeutics, Inc. prior to its conversion to a limited liability company and to Caliber Therapeutics, LLC after its conversion to a limited liability company, as applicable. References in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “BackBeat” refer to BackBeat Medical, Inc. prior to its conversion to a limited liability company and to BackBeat Medical, LLC after its conversion to a limited liability company, as applicable.

Partnership-Enabled Business Model

Our business was formed specifically to pursue a partnership-enabled business model that seeks to apply strategies typically used by the biopharmaceutical industry to the medical device market where product developers are often challenged with the financial and execution burdens of also commercializing the products they are developing to achieve a value inflection event for their shareholders.

Our goal is to accelerate and improve the likelihood of our product innovations reaching patients and providers worldwide by sharing the risks and rewards of developing and commercializing these product candidates with established multinational companies, such as Medtronic and Terumo. Using this approach, we believe we can pursue multiple potentially lucrative innovation opportunities by focusing our efforts and resources on advancing promising therapeutic solutions, such as AVIM therapy and Virtue SAB, through late-stage clinical research and regulatory approvals. Meanwhile, our partners secure substantial new prospective growth opportunities with the potential to reduce risk and expense while leveraging their existing infrastructure to bring our partnered product candidates to global markets quickly and efficiently if regulatory approval is obtained.

We believe our partnership-enabled business model can create value for its stakeholders and partners by:

Our Product Pipeline

Our pipeline is comprised of innovative therapeutic product candidates that we believe have the potential for value creation using our partnership-enabled business model, led by our flagship technologies, AVIM therapy and Virtue SAB. We believe our product pipeline has the potential to improve clinical outcomes and provide distinct commercial advantages within two of the largest and well-established global medical device markets: AVIM therapy in cardiac rhythm management implants, an overall global market that Grand View Research valued at a $17.2 billion market worldwide in 2024; and Virtue SAB in interventional devices to treat CAD and PAD, an overall global market that Data Bridge and Straits Research, market research firms, valued at a $20.9 billion market worldwide in 2024. Our pipeline also includes additional product candidates for other significant medical conditions that we believe are attractive candidates for value creation using its partnership-enabled business model.

Our product candidates are based on platform technologies that each have late-stage lead clinical indications with attractive follow-on clinical indications that could add substantial future commercial potential. Moreover, our additional pipeline opportunities, such as Cardiac Neuromodulation Therapy (“CNT”) for heart failure, or potential treatment of clinical indications such as urology or osteoarthritis using SirolimusEFR, and the microporous AngioInfusion balloon technology used in the Virtue SAB leverage the same platform technologies and intellectual property already developed for its flagship product candidates. Generally, our product candidates target large, mature global markets in which there are several active multinational and regional corporations with established distribution capabilities in place. These product candidates are designed to potentially offer important clinical, health and economic benefits without changing established treatment paradigms such as physician techniques or patient referral and treatment patterns, providing a select strategic partner a potential means to differentiate their product portfolios from competitors, drive revenue growth and gain market share. Our strategic collaboration agreements with Medtronic for AVIM therapy and Terumo for Virtue SAB demonstrate our ability to align with global market leaders for the long-term development and commercialization of our product candidates.

The following table summarizes our material pipeline programs organized by product platform, as well as target indications, development status, market opportunity, strategic partners/collaborators and next milestones.

Advancing a High-Impact Pipeline

1Will seek to leverage data from the pilot and pivotal trials involving HTN in patients indicated for a cardiac pacemaker (the “HTN+P population” or the “Primary Field”) to support clinical and regulatory development for HTN with high cardiovascular risk in patients not yet indicated for a pacemaker indication given that age and other demographic factors of the target population are expected to be similar, the type of hypertension treated will likely be isolated systolic hypertension which is predominant in the HTN+P population, and other co-morbidities are also expected to be common to both target populations. However, there have been no discussions with the FDA or a comparable foreign regulator in this regard.

2Plan to leverage existing coronary ISR data to support potential pivotal studies, although there have only been limited discussions with the FDA or comparable foreign regulators in this regard.

3In August 2023, Orchestra announced that the FDA had granted it approval with conditions to initiate the planned Virtue ISR-US pivotal study evaluating the efficacy and safety of Virtue SAB for the treatment of patients with coronary ISR. However, in light of the recent FDA approval of Boston Scientific Corporation’s AGENT™ paclitaxel-coated balloon for the treatment of coronary ISR, we are reviewing the design for the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study and considering alternative clinical study designs with our clinical steering committee for Virtue SAB. Virtue SAB has received Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA for the balloon dilatation of the stenotic portion (up to 26 mm length) of a stented coronary artery (ISR) that is 2.25 to 4.0 mm in diameter, for the purpose of improving lumen diameter.

4Virtue SAB has received Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA for the balloon dilatation of the de novo stenotic portion (up to 26mm in lesion length) of a native coronary artery of 2.0 mm to 2.5 mm in diameter (small coronary arteries), for the purpose of improving lumen diameter.

5Virtue SAB has received Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA for the balloon dilatation of the stenotic portion (up to 18 mm length) of an infrapopliteal artery (P-3 segment or distal, below the knee, with reference vessel diameter (RVD) 2.25 – 4.0 mm), for the purpose of improving lumen diameter.

BIOELECTRONIC PRODUCT CANDIDATES —AVIM Therapy for Uncontrolled Hypertension and CNT-HF for Heart Failure

We are developing bioelectronic therapies based on patented CNT technology. Our product candidates are designed to use standard active implantable cardiac rhythm management systems, such as pacemakers, with changes to firmware and software only. Our flagship product candidate of the Bioelectronic Therapies Group is AVIM therapy, a patented, potential bioelectronics treatment for uncontrolled HTN, the leading risk factor for death worldwide. We have an exclusive strategic collaboration with Medtronic for the development and commercialization of AVIM therapy for the treatment of uncontrolled HTN in patients indicated for a cardiac pacemaker.

We also believe AVIM therapy may offer therapeutic benefit to select patients with uncontrolled HTN who are not indicated for a pacemaker. Medtronic has a right of first negotiation with respect to AVIM therapy for the treatment of HTN in non-pacemaker patients.

We are also pursuing CNT-HF, a bioelectronic product candidate that aims to reduce chronic sympathetic nervous system activity in heart failure (“HF”) for which there is an estimated global patient population of 64 million people according to the AME Medical Journal.

Atrioventricular Interval Modulation (AVIM) Therapy Product Candidate

In the discussion below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10 K, we reference p-values, which are statistical calculations that relate to the probability that the observed difference between groups happened by chance, with a p-value of less than 0.05 (i.e., less than a 5% probability that the observed difference happened by chance) generally considered as the threshold to indicate statistical significance in clinical trials.

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Atrioventricular Interval Modulation or “AVIM” therapy was previously referred to as BackBeat CNT. With respect to the strategic collaboration agreement with Medtronic described below and the preclinical and clinical results also described below, the therapy was previously referred to as BackBeat CNT as this was term generally used to describe the therapy for such agreement or prior development activities. We will refer to the product candidate as AVIM therapy below.

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AVIM therapy is a bioelectronic product candidate for uncontrolled HTN that is designed to immediately, substantially and persistently reduce blood pressure. AVIM therapy is delivered through programmed cardiac pacing algorithms and is designed to leverage standard rhythm management device procedures (dual-chamber pacemaker), utilizing the same implant procedure and lead positions while still enabling standard rhythm management (pacing) functions. While AVIM therapy is designed to achieve certain results as described above, there is no guarantee that AVIM therapy will prove to be safe and effective.

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Clinical studies performed to date have been conducted using our proprietary Moderato system, a pacemaker system, incorporating AVIM therapy. Clinical results from two European clinical studies, the MODERATO I single-arm clinical study and the MODERATO II double-blind, randomized, controlled pilot study, demonstrated a significant and clinically meaningful reduction in systolic blood pressure in hypertensive patients also indicated for a pacemaker. In particular, the MODERATO II study met its primary efficacy endpoint, as patients randomized to AVIM therapy showed a statistically significant 11.1 mmHg (p<0.01) reduction in mean 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (“aSBP”) at six months follow-up from activation, resulting in a statistically significant difference of 8.1 mmHg (p=0.01) of aSBP compared to control patients who were managed only with anti-hypertensive medications. The study also met its primary safety endpoint with no clinically meaningful differences in rate of major adverse cardiac events (“MACE”) between the two groups at six months follow-up. Further details on the results of the AVIM therapy clinical studies performed to date are provided below.

Strategic Collaboration Agreement with Medtronic

In June 2022, we and Medtronic entered into the Medtronic Agreement for the development and commercialization of AVIM therapy for the treatment of uncontrolled HTN in patients indicated for a cardiac pacemaker (the “HTN+P population” or the “Primary Field”). Under the terms of the Medtronic Agreement, we are the sponsor for the BACKBEAT study to support regulatory approval in the United States, European Union (the “EU”), Japan and other potential territories of AVIM therapy in the Primary Field and we are financially responsible for development, clinical and regulatory costs associated with this pivotal study.

Medtronic has completed integration and associated validation and verification testing of AVIM therapy algorithms as a field downloadable addition to its premium, commercially available dual-chamber pacemaker systems for use in the pivotal study. Medtronic is also providing clinical, regulatory, operational field clinical resources in support of the BACKBEAT study. We are reimbursing Medtronic at cost for these development, clinical and regulatory resources. Medtronic will integrate AVIM therapy, at our cost, as a firmware component of a premium pacemaker for potential regulatory approval and commercialization of AVIM-enabled commercial devices following a successful outcome of the BACKBEAT study.

Medtronic is the global market leader in cardiac rhythm management (“CRM”), and pacemaker devices, with over 50% of the U.S. market share for such devices and typically having a leading share in all other global markets. Given Medtronic’s market leadership and the potential therapeutic benefits of AVIM therapy, we believe AVIM-enabled pacemakers, if commercially approved, have the potential to be rapidly adopted into existing pacemaker-indicated patient care for addressable hypertensive patients.

We further believe the substantial potential added clinical value and differentiation of AVIM-enabled pacemakers can help Medtronic potentially expand market share and grow revenue.

Under the terms of the Medtronic Agreement, Medtronic will have exclusive rights in the Primary Field to commercialize AVIM-enabled pacing systems globally following receipt of regulatory approvals. Medtronic would be entirely responsible for global commercialization following any receipt of regulatory approvals, including manufacturing, sales, marketing and distribution costs. Under the terms of the Medtronic Agreement, assuming that AVIM-enabled devices are sold at average selling prices supported by existing reimbursement structures worldwide (e.g., no higher or additional reimbursement is available), we are expected to receive between $500 and $1,600 per AVIM-enabled device sold based on a formula of the higher of (1) a fixed dollar amount per AVIM-enabled device (amount varies materially on a country-by-country basis) or (2) a percentage of the AVIM therapy generated sales. This estimated range is derived from publicly-available information, our management’s knowledge of the pacemaker market, our discussions with Medtronic, and the terms of the Medtronic Agreement. Based on our discussions with Medtronic, the global market leader in pacemakers, the terms of the Medtronic Agreement and our management’s knowledge of reimbursement codes for medical devices, we believe that AVIM-enabled pacemakers can be supported by existing reimbursement codes without the need for new codes.

Under the terms of the Medtronic Agreement, Medtronic has a right of first negotiation through FDA approval of AVIM therapy for the Primary Field, to expand its global rights to AVIM therapy for the treatment of uncontrolled HTN in patients not indicated for a pacemaker.

In addition to customary early termination provisions, the Medtronic Agreement will terminate on the date no further revenue share payments are due under the Medtronic Agreement, at which point Medtronic’s license under the Medtronic Agreement would become fully paid up, perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free. Revenue share payments with respect to each applicable country (or group of countries) are to be paid for a minimum period of time determined by the latest to occur of (a) the expiration of the last valid claim of certain specified patents or (b) the date that is 12 years after the first commercial sale of any AVIM-enabled pacemakers in the applicable country or group of countries.

Market Needs

Hypertension

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HTN is elevated blood pressure that increases risk of major cardiac events like heart attack and stroke and can contribute to other significant conditions such as heart failure and kidney disease. According to the World Health Organization (the “WHO”), HTN is the leading global risk factor for death affecting an estimated 1.28 billion adults worldwide. Cardiovascular risk doubles for every 10 mmHg increase in office systolic blood pressure and the mortality rate doubles with an increase of 20 mmHg in office systolic blood pressure, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”) estimates 119.9 million adults, or approximately 48% of all adults in the United States have HTN. Within this group only 1 in 4 adults have their condition under control. In 2017, the American Heart Association (the “AHA”) and the American College of Cardiology (“ACC”) established new Hypertension Clinical Practice Guidelines defining Stage 1 HTN as patients with systolic 130 to 139 mmHg or diastolic 80 to 89 mmHg and Stage 2 HTN as patients with a systolic BP of at least 140 mmHg or a diastolic BP of at least 90 mmHg. Under these updated guidelines, the percentage of U.S. adults believed to have HTN increased from 31.9% to approximately 47% of all adults or approximately 120 million adults. Global guidelines have yet to be updated to be in line with U.S. clinical practice and generally HTN diagnoses start at the blood pressure level of U.S. Stage 2 HTN or above 140 mmHg for systolic BP. Importantly, 72% of U.S. adults over age 65, the age group most likely to need pacemakers, are considered to have HTN under the new guidelines. Further, the guidelines also recommend that a substantial proportion of U.S. adults taking anti-hypertensive medication undergo a more intensive BP lowering treatment to control their HTN.

The CDC reported high blood pressure as the primary or contributing cause of death in 2022 for more than 685,000 people in the United States, equating to nearly 1,875 deaths per day. By 2035, the estimated direct cost of high blood pressure could increase to $220.9 billion (annual average), according to the AHA.

Non-adherence to antihypertensive treatment is a critical contributor to suboptimal blood pressure control and another important risk factor for adverse cardiovascular disease outcomes. Of U.S. patients aware of their HTN diagnosis, about 76% are believed to be taking anti-hypertensive medication, but only 52% of those have their condition controlled, according to the Journal of Clinical Hypertension. Therefore, approximately 60% of hypertensive U.S. adults have uncontrolled HTN. An estimated 31% of HTN patients are non-adherent to medications, according to the AHA. Thus, many medically responsive patients have high blood pressure simply because they do not take their medications, making medication non-compliance one of the most prominent challenges of HTN management. In addition, since HTN patients are typically older, they are more likely to be prescribed multiple medications for HTN and other medical conditions: polypharmacy (multiple medications) is associated with increased risk of adverse events (fall injury, heart failure, etc.), polypharmacy mismanagement, and drug-drug interactions. Furthermore, AHA estimates as much as 15% of the prevalent HTN population is resistant to medical therapy, and these patients are 47% more likely to suffer the combined outcomes of death, myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, or chronic kidney disease over the median 3.8 years of follow-up than other HTN patients. Because of the factors mentioned above, there is a significant need for alternative therapies to treat HTN, particularly, device-based therapies that do not require patient compliance for receiving treatment.

Isolated Systolic Hypertension, Elevated Pulse Pressure & Diastolic Dysfunction

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Based on data from the CDC, 63% of U.S. adults over 60 years old have HTN, with over 65% of them suffering from isolated systolic hypertension (“ISH”). ISH patients have elevated systolic blood pressure (>140 mmHg), while their diastolic blood pressure remains normal or low (≤90 mmHg). ISH is a more difficult to treat form of HTN because anti-hypertensive medications generally impact both systolic and diastolic pressure. It is estimated that over 80% of medical treatment failure patients over 60 years old have ISH, according to the AHA. ISH patients experience elevated pulse pressure, which is the difference between systolic and diastolic pressures (“Pulse Pressure”). Pulse Pressure is a known, significant, independent risk factor for coronary heart disease. According to published literature, a 10 mmHg increase in Pulse Pressure is associated with a 32% increase in risk of heart failure and a 24% increase in risk of stroke (after controlling for systolic BP and other risk factors). In addition, in men ≥60 years old (the typical age of pacemaker patients), risk for coronary artery disease is three times larger in patients with Pulse Pressure of ≥70 mmHg compared to those with Pulse Pressure of 60 mmHg.

Long standing HTN leads to cardiac structural and functional changes that frequently result in left ventricular (“LV”) DD, a condition in which the left ventricle has impaired relaxation and filling, leading to increased pressure and reduced efficiency in pumping blood. It is a key contributor to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), which accounts for approximately 50% of all heart failure cases. The prevalence of DD increases with age, affecting over 50% of individuals over 70.

Hypertension among Patients with Pacemakers

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Pacemakers are recommended for the management of symptomatic bradycardia (slow heart rate) due to sick sinus syndrome, atrio-ventricular block, a combination of these conditions or other situations in which patients are prone to brady-arrhythmias. Currently available devices have evolved from single-chamber, fixed-rate pacemakers to multi-chamber, rate-responsive units. In the United States, over 85% of pacemaker patients receive dual-chamber devices which have wires or leads implanted in the right atrium and right ventricle of the heart capable of sensing and stimulating the heart to control contraction timing of both chambers. There were approximately 1.1 million dual-chamber pacemaker implants performed worldwide in 2022 according to GlobalData. Global sales of dual-chamber pacemakers exceeded $3.6 billion in 2022 according to GlobalData, comprising over 20% of the overall $17.2 billion market for implantable cardiac rhythm management devices.

Based on ACC/AHA guidelines, we estimate that nearly 80% of U.S. patients that are indicated for the implant of a pacemaker have HTN. Among this group of patients, over 60% are estimated to have uncontrolled HTN based on the treatment goal per the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines. Further, since the average age of pacemaker-indicated patients is approximately 73 years old and, in consideration of other demographic factors associated with this population, these patients are at elevated risk of ISH (over 80% of patients enrolled in prior clinical studies of AVIM therapy had ISH). Furthermore, these patients are likely to suffer from other co-morbidities common to this population such as atherosclerosis, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease. We believe these patients could benefit substantially from a HTN therapy like AVIM therapy that can be administered via an already necessary pacemaker.

Target Patient Populations and Market Opportunity for AVIM Therapy

The initial target market for AVIM therapy is the large population of patients with uncontrolled HTN who also require the implant or replacement of a pacemaker (the HTN+P population). Pursuing this patient population takes advantage of the fact that AVIM therapy is designed to address patients who already require a pacemaker implant since it can be readily incorporated into standard cardiac rhythm management systems such as pacemakers, as Medtronic has already done for the BACKBEAT study.

As a novel HTN therapy that can be completely integrated with an established existing commercially available device patients already require for a critical medical indication, we believe AVIM therapy can be readily adopted into the existing paradigm of care for hypertensive patients that already require a pacemaker implant. As already described above, we believe there is a significant unmet need and commercial opportunity for more effective treatment of the HTN+P population.

AVIM-enabled pacemakers can be implanted using standard implant procedures, electrical leads and lead positions. Further, we believe any experienced and trained physicians who perform pacemaker implants, such as electrophysiologists and cardiologists, will be able to select an AVIM-enabled pacemaker for an appropriate patient without the need for another physician referral, if approved. AVIM therapy features proprietary algorithms that are designed to enable physicians to non-invasively adjust the therapeutic parameters to optimize chronic blood pressure reduction to individual patient needs. In addition, AVIM therapy is designed to be de-activated or reactivated by the physician as necessary, offering potential efficacy and safety advantages over other device-based therapies. Importantly, the therapeutic effects of AVIM therapy are designed to not rely on patient adherence or compliance, offering a significant complement to pharmaceutical therapies for which adherence and compliance are a key challenge.

We estimate that the addressable annual market for pacemaker-indicated patients with HTN will comprise more than 750,000 patients worldwide by 2026. We estimate that, if approved, commercialization of AVIM therapy in hypertensive pacemaker patients can increase the commercial value of the global pacemaker device market by over $2 billion annually. This substantial annual opportunity is based on incorporating AVIM therapy’s potentially potent and clinically impactful HTN treatment capabilities into a pacemaker to drive a meaningful increase in the average selling price (“ASP”) that can be supported by existing pacemaker procedure codes globally.

We also believe AVIM therapy may offer therapeutic benefits to HTN patients not yet indicated for a pacemaker who have uncontrolled systolic blood pressure despite medical therapy and have increased cardiovascular risk factors such as ISH, DD and additional serious medical comorbidities. We estimate that this additional addressable annual market for select patients with uncontrolled hypertension and high cardiovascular risk not yet indicated for a pacemaker will comprise at least 3.7 million patients worldwide by 2025, or approximately 0.2% of the global HTN population. We calculate this estimated market using information from publicly available third-party sources that only includes those hypertensive patients who are (1) over 60 years of age with high (>20%) ASCVD score, (2) are currently being treated with at least one medication, (3) have high systolic blood pressure (greater than 160 mmHg oSBP) despite medical therapy, (4) have ISH, and (5) do not have high burden atrial fibrillation, symptomatic HF, white coat, and severe valvular disease. Using similar maximum ASP figures based on existing reimbursement codes for pacemaker implantation, we estimate that this calculated market represents a global potential annual revenue opportunity of over $15.4 billion using similar potential ASPs as AVIM-enabled pacemakers.

Impact Potential of AVIM therapy

AVIM therapy is a bioelectronic product candidate for uncontrolled HTN that is designed to immediately, substantially and persistently reduce blood pressure. AVIM therapy is delivered through programmed cardiac pacing algorithms. These algorithms are specifically designed to reduce blood pressure by (1) lowering cardiac preload (ventricular filling volume) and maintaining reduced blood pressure and by (2) modulating sympathetic tone (the level of activity of the sympathetic nervous system) as well as reducing cardiac afterload (total peripheral resistance). AVIM therapy is designed to leverage standard rhythm management devices (dual-chamber pacemakers), utilizing the same implant procedure and lead positions while still enabling standard rhythm management (pacing) functions. We believe that physicians such as implanting cardiologists and electrophysiologists who currently implant pacemakers and are responsible for the care of these patients can make the medical decision to implant an AVIM-enabled pacemaker in an eligible patient. Further, we believe that AVIM-enabled devices can garner meaningfully higher ASPs that can be supported by existing reimbursement without the need for new procedure codes. While AVIM therapy is designed to achieve certain results as described above and below, there is no guarantee that AVIM therapy will prove to be safe and effective.

AVIM therapy is designed to deliver cardiac pacing to reduce blood pressure through two essential mechanisms:

1Kalarus et al. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2021;10:e020492ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.120.020492.

2Kuck, Hemodynamics Effects of AVIM Therapy, THT’24

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Preclinical Data

The goal of the preclinical studies was to evaluate the feasibility of the use of AVIM therapy in a canine model with surgically induced HTN and to provide a rationale for clinical use to persistently lower blood pressure in patients with HTN. AVIM therapy was delivered via pacing algorithms in a prototype device in the canine model. Chronic delivery of AVIM therapy significantly reduced 24-hour aSBP by an average of 32.5 mmHg over a one-month period (n=4).

The reduction occurred immediately upon activation of therapy and was maintained for the period that the therapy was active (approximately 30 days). Blood pressure did not meaningfully change in the study’s single control animal that had an AVIM therapy device implanted but not activated. 24-hour aSBP was measured using an implanted blood pressure sensor.

The chart below shows the baseline 24-hour aSBP profile of one of the study animals prior to therapy activation as compared to the 24-hour aSBP profile of the same animal following activation of AVIM therapy. The results are plotted as a histogram demonstrating the frequency of blood pressure levels over the course of the 24-hour period. The baseline aSBP histogram shows the percentage frequency of aSBP reaching different levels of pressure ranging from approximately 135 mmHg to 280 mmHg and a most frequent aSBP of approximately 180 mmHg. By contrast, the AVIM therapy aSBP histogram shows the percentage frequency of aSBP reaching different levels of pressure ranging from approximately 120 mmHg to 260 mmHg and a most frequent aSBP of approximately 145 mmHg. The charts demonstrate the significant improvement in the entire 24-hour aSBP profile of the animal driven by AVIM therapy as the entire aSBP histogram is shifted substantially downwards and to the left in term of frequency of reaching lower SBP levels and the peak SBP frequency level is reduced by approximately 35 mmHg. These results are similar in the three AVIM therapy study animals in terms of substantial improvement of the 24-hour aSBP profile while the one study control animal did not experience a shift in 24-hour aSBP profile.

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The chart below on the left shows average aSBP per 24-hour period of the same study animal profiled above over the entire study period. This chart demonstrates that (1) AVIM therapy drove a substantial reduction of 24-hour aSBP from baseline levels (shown in orange with each box representing a full 24-hour period of aSBP measurement); (2) this blood pressure reduction was maintained through the period that AVIM therapy was active (as reflected in the orange line made up of orange boxes); and (3) blood pressure levels took more than 10 days to return to baseline levels after AVIM therapy was turned off, indicating that sympathetic tone responses and afterload levels were potentially modulated by chronic delivery of AVIM therapy since aSBP levels would be expected to return immediately to baseline levels if sympathetic tone and afterload were not modulated. These results are similar in all three AVIM therapy study animals in terms of durable substantial improvement of the 24-hour aSBP profile and slow response over days to baseline aSBP levels. As shown in the chart below on the right, the one study control animal did not experience any significant changes in 24-hour aSBP during the study period as illustrated by the chart below.

Clinical Results

Acute Clinical Studies (Nanjing):

A short time-based study of the effects of AVIM therapy in 18 patients with uncontrolled HTN who were already scheduled to undergo an invasive electrophysiology procedure was conducted at Jiangsu Province Hospital/The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China. The study population consisted of patients with uncontrolled HTN and systolic blood pressure >140 mmHg despite at least one anti-hypertensive medication.

AVIM therapy was applied for at least one minute in all patients and up to five minutes in certain patients based on whether the physician managing the primary electrophysiology procedure allowed for longer duration of treatment based on the time available to perform the AVIM therapy acute clinical study versus the primary electrophysiology procedure for which the patient was being treated.

Various signal parameters were evaluated. All patients exhibited reduction of >10 mmHg in systolic blood pressure. The average sustained reduction in blood pressure was 19.7 +/-7.4 mmHg systolic (p<0.001) and 4.3 +/-3.7 mmHg diastolic (p<0.001). No serious adverse effects were observed or reported in these studies. The study also demonstrated that reduction in blood pressure was titrated by modifying AVIM therapy parameters as needed.

Acute Clinical Study (Prague):

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On March 6, 2024, we announced the presentation of results from a pressure volume (“PV”) loop clinical study of AVIM therapy in pacemaker-indicated patients with uncontrolled HTN despite the use of anti-hypertensive medication. The new clinical data demonstrate the favorable hemodynamic impact of AVIM therapy as compared to standard right ventricular (“RV”) pacing on systolic blood pressure and overall cardiac function when delivered using both conduction system as well as standard pacing lead locations. The PV loop study was conducted at Na Homolce Hospital in Prague by Petr Neužil, MD, CSc., FESC and the data were presented by Prof. Karl-Heinz Kuck, M.D., Medical Director at LANS Cardio Hamburg at the Technology and Heart Failure Therapeutics 2024 Meeting.

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The PV loop study enrolled 16 patients indicated for a dual-chamber pacemaker that also had uncontrolled HTN despite taking anti-hypertensive medication who underwent invasive PV loop testing to evaluate cardiac function, measured by changes in LV volumes and pressures using a pressure-volume catheter placed in the LV. SBP was measured using a pressure transducer placed in the aorta, and baseline measurements were recorded using atrial pacing at a fixed rate. Normal conduction AVIM therapy with pacing leads placed in AVIM RV locations, as well as in AVIM CSP locations targeting the left bundle branch area (LBBA) regions, respectively, was compared to standard AV Pacing.

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Overall mean results for each variable were calculated using paired measurements for each individual patient using AVIM RV, AVIM CSP and AV Pacing, respectively:

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Chronic Clinical Studies:

MODERATO I Single Arm Study

The 27-patient, MODERATO I clinical study was conducted primarily in Europe (along with one clinical site in Chile) to evaluate the safety and efficacy of AVIM therapy using our proprietary Moderato system, capable of delivering AVIM therapy as well as performing the rhythm management function of a standard dual-chamber pacemaker. The Moderato system, comprised of the implantable pulse generator (“IPG”) and programmer, was manufactured under an original equipment manufacturer contract by a division of Integer Holdings Corporation (“Integer”), a leading supplier of cardiac rhythm management device components. The Moderato system was European Conformity (“CE”) marked in July 2019. However, we do not plan to commercialize the Moderato device, but may consider utilizing the CE marked system to conduct additional clinical work in the EU.

The results from the MODERATO I study were published in December 2017 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The main inclusion criteria required patients to have oSBP >150 mmHg despite taking at least two anti-hypertensive drugs as well as having a clinical indication for a dual-chamber pacemaker implant or replacement. Twenty-seven patients meeting all study entry criteria underwent a Moderato device implant, at which time only standard pacemaker functions were activated. Nearly 80% of the patients enrolled had ISH, making them a more difficult group of patients to treat. All enrolled patients were implanted with Moderato devices and then followed for a one-month observation period to evaluate any changes in blood pressure due to either the initiation of standard pacing alone or due to their participation in the study. At the end of the one-month period blood pressure was reassessed to ensure oSBP remained >140 mmHg for eligibility to enter the treatment phase of the study. Only 27 patients met the criteria and AVIM therapy was activated in these patients. Patients were then reevaluated following three months of treatment for changes in blood pressure assessed by both office cuff measurements and by 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure recordings. The study’s co-primary efficacy endpoints were changes in oSBP and mean 24-hour aSBP (added as a study amendment) from pre-activation through three months post activation of therapy. All 27 patients completed the study’s three-month activation period and clinical follow-up. Twenty-one patients consented to be followed at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after activation and only oSBP levels were measured at these longer follow-up time points due to the fact that measuring changes in aSBP over two- to six-month periods is generally deemed appropriate to assess HTN therapies and because additional aSBP measurements are highly burdensome for patients that participate in HTN studies as they require wearing a device that takes frequent blood pressure measurements over a 24-hour period. Two-year follow-up data available from these 21 patients was presented for the first time in October 2017 at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (“TCT”) conference in Denver, Colorado.

The co-primary efficacy endpoint of changes in mean 24-hour aSBP was met successfully with AVIM therapy activation driving a significant 11.6 mmHg reduction (p<0.001) from pre-activation levels during the first day of therapy. The reduction was maintained through the three-month activation period, representing a statistically significant reduction of 10.1 mmHg (p=0.007) from the pre-activation aSBP. Seventeen of the 27 study patients participated in the co-primary efficacy endpoint analysis which was included as amendment to the MODERATO I study design following initiation of the study given new evidence from other clinical studies regarding the potential importance of change in mean 24-hour aSBP in assessing the potential efficacy of HTN therapies.

The co-primary efficacy endpoint of changes in oSBP was also met successfully with AVIM therapy driving a statistically significant reduction in oSBP, 16.1 mmHg (p<0.001) from pre-activation levels. This reduction in oSBP was maintained in patients who reached the later follow-up time points with a mean statistically significant reduction of 23.4 mmHg (p<0.001) in oSBP from baseline levels after 24 months of therapy.  

1aSBP (n=160 at pre-activation.

2AVIM (n=21) continued after completion of study at 3 months to be followed for 2 years.

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Long-term (24-month) data showed results consistent with expected mechanism of action, including statistically significant reduction in heart rate (p<0.05), a key measure of sympathetic nervous system activation, and end-diastolic volume, a key safety measure. In addition, comparison of echocardiograms performed at baseline and following activation up to two years of AVIM therapy showed that there were no significant changes in cardiac function (ejection fraction).

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24-month Data Consistent with Expected Mechanism of Action

During the initial study period for MODERATO I, there were eleven serious adverse events (“SAEs”) in seven of the 27 study patients. Nine events in six patients were cardiac related. Two non-cardiac events were urinary tract infections and dyspnea treated with bronchodilator. No events were adjudicated as definitely or probably related to AVIM therapy. One event was adjudicated as probably related to the implant procedure for the Moderato device. Four events in four patients were adjudicated as possibly related to the Moderato device (atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction with symptoms of heart failure, cardiac asthma, and arrhythmia due to ventricular oversensing).

During the extended 21-month follow-up period that included 24 patients who continued with AVIM therapy, there were 25 SAEs in twelve patients. No events were adjudicated as definitely or probably related to AVIM therapy. Out of 25 events, 17 events in seven patients were cardiac related. There were eight non-cardiac events in eight patients. The non-cardiac events included two orthopedic events, two cases of cancer, a transient ischemic event, and three respiratory related events. Five events in three patients were adjudicated as possibly device related. These included two events of atrial fibrillation in the same patient, pneumonia with cardiac decompensation and dyspnea with cardiac decompensation in one patient, and cardiac decompensation in another patient.

MODERATO II Double-Blind, Randomized Study

The results of the MODERATO II study of AVIM therapy in patients with uncontrolled HTN also indicated for a pacemaker were published in August 2021 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. All patients enrolled in the MODERATO II study, a European prospective, multi-center, double-blind, randomized pilot study of AVIM therapy, had persistent HTN (aSBP ≥ 130 mmHg and oSBP ≥ 140 mmHg) despite one or more anti-hypertensive medications and a pacemaker indication, and were implanted with our Moderato System. Following a 30-day run-in period during which patients received only standard pacing along with anti-hypertensive medications, patients who met follow-up screening criteria for daytime aSBP were randomized to AVIM therapy or control groups.

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Prior to randomization, mean aSBP for both groups was 136.3 mmHg with patients, on average, treated with over three prescribed anti-hypertensive drugs. 88.5% of the patients in the AVIM therapy treatment arm had ISH, making them a more challenging group of patients to treat. 71.4% of control arm patients also had ISH. The study met its primary efficacy endpoint of superiority of AVIM therapy to control in terms of change in mean 24-hour aSBP at six months following randomization. After six months, mean aSBP was reduced by a statistically significant 11.1 mmHg in the AVIM therapy group as compared to a non-significant reduction of 3.1 mmHg in the control group, resulting in a statistically significant difference of 8.1 mmHg (p=0.01) between groups.

The treatment group saw a high (85%) overall response rate, with approximately 54% of the AVIM-treated patients experiencing aSBP reduction at six months of greater than 10 mmHg, an amount associated with a clinically meaningful reduction in risk of heart attack and stroke.

The study met its secondary efficacy endpoint of superiority of AVIM therapy to control in terms of change in oSBP at six months following randomization. After six months, oSBP was reduced by a statistically significant 12.4 mmHg in the AVIM therapy group as compared to a non-significant reduction of 0.1 mmHg in the control group, resulting in a statistically significant difference of 12.3 mmHg (p=0.02) between groups.

The MODERATO II study also met its primary safety endpoint, which was no significant differences in rates of MACE. There were no MACE in the AVIM therapy group and three MACE in two patients in the control group (one death from cancer and two cardiac events) at six months. Additionally, there were no notable differences in echo parameters between the two arms. During the randomized phase of the study, there were eight SAEs in four patients in the control group (n=21) and none in the treatment group (n=26). Two of the eight events were cardiac related. During the extended 18-month follow-up period that included treatment patients (n=26) and crossover-to-treatment patients (n=14), there were 26 SAEs in 16 patients. Out of 26 events, only 13 events (in eleven patients) were cardiac related. No events were adjudicated as possibly related to AVIM therapy. The non-cardiac events included four cancer related events, for gastrointestinal disorder events, one COVID-19 death, one amputation, two inflammatory events, and a transient ischemic event.

AVIM-treated patients in the MODERATO II study continued to be followed through the 24-month period of the study, including control patients who crossed over to AVIM therapy after the end of the six-month double-blind period of the study. Only oSBP measurements were taken at follow-up visits after the six-month aSBP primary endpoint was measured. Significant reduction in oSBP, a mean of 17.5 mmHg, was maintained in all AVIM-treated patients who completed the 24-month follow-up. The results for 24-hour aSBP and oSBP at six months post-randomization, as well as the oSBP results at 24 months are shown in the figure below:

124-Hr aSBP Control (n=19), 1 control patient could not be measured despite repeat measurement (patient had extremely high blood pressure);

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Definitions: Major Adverse Cardiac Events (MACE) included death, heart failure, clinically significant arrhythmias (i.e., persistent or increased atrial fibrillation, serious ventricular arrhythmias), myocardial infarction, stroke and renal failure in treatment group calculated per patient; Office Systolic Blood Pressure (oSBP); and Ambulatory Systolic Blood Pressure (aSBP).

Additionally, as shown in the chart below, the mean pre-activation 24-hour aSBP profile (systolic blood pressure plotted over a 24-hour period) for all 26 AVIM therapy patients (prior to receiving AVIM therapy) was significantly reduced at six months following AVIM therapy activation at all time points.

Source: Kalarus et al. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2021;10:e020492ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.120.020492.

Presented: Kuck, Hemodynamics Effects of AVIM Therapy, THT’24.

Following completion of the randomized period and successful achievement of the primary endpoints, 14 control patients crossed over to active AVIM therapy. Nine of the fourteen patients had ISH. The results in these patients were encouraging and consistent with the reductions in the AVIM therapy group during the randomized portion of the study and are summarized below:

MODERATO II Results in ISH Patients

In a subgroup of the MODERATO II study’s patients with ISH, a dangerous and challenging to treat form of HTN prevalent in older patients, treatment with AVIM therapy resulted in clinically meaningful and statistically significant reductions of 7.4 mmHg in aSBP and 11.9 mmHg in oSBP when compared to control (continued medical therapy) patients at six months. Further, in patients with ISH, AVIM therapy drove statistically significant reductions of 9.4 mmHg in ambulatory Pulse Pressure and 13.3 mmHg in office Pulse Pressure at six months as compared to control patients.

1Kalaras et al. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2021;10:e020492. https//doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.120.020492.

2Burkhoff MODERATO II Study 2-Year Results TCT 2021.

3Compared to pre-activation.

413 control patients at 6 months, one died of cancer, and one had unsuccessful recording

514 control patients at 6 months, one died of cancer

621 patients at 24 months, one died of cancer, and one died from Covid-19

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1Compared to pre-activation.

224-Hr Ambulatory Pulse Pressure control (n=13) at 6 months. One died of cancer, and one had unsuccessful recording.

3Office Pulse Pressure control (n=14) at 6 months. One died of cancer.

4AVIM therapy(n=21) at 24 months. One died of cancer, and one died from Covid-19.

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MODERATO II Long-Term Follow Up Study:

On February 26, 2024, we announced new data demonstrating sustained, clinically meaningful reduction in 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (aSBP) in hypertensive pacemaker patients treated with AVIM therapy for over 3 years. Reduction in aSBP measured at 6 months from randomization and therapy activation was the primary endpoint of the MODERATO II study, a European multi-center, double-blind, randomized pilot study involving 47 subjects. Patients randomized to AVIM therapy and antihypertension medication in that study experienced an 11.1 mmHg (p<0.001) reduction in mean aSBP at 6 months follow-up, resulting in a statistically significant difference of 8.1 mmHg compared to control patients who were managed only with anti-hypertensive medications (p=0.01). Long-term blood pressure results are from a follow-up study of 16 patients originally enrolled in the MODERATO II study. This group included eight patients from the MODERATO II study’s AVIM treatment arm and eight control arm patients that crossed over to AVIM therapy at the end of the 6-month double-blind phase. In this group of patients, aSBP was measured, on average, 3.6 (±0.6) years following initiation of AVIM therapy. As a group and based on individual paired data, these patients continued to experience a statistically significant, clinically meaningful mean aSBP reduction of 8.9 mmHg at long-term follow up, which is similar to the mean aSBP reduction of 8.9 mmHg seen in this same group of patients when measured at the 6-month aSBP measurement.

1Kalaras et al. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2021;10:e020492 ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.120.020492.

2Burkhoff MODERATO II Study 2-Year Results TCT 2021.

3Fischer MODERATO Study Long-term Results ICI 2024.

4Patients re-consented for long-term follow-up.

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MODERATO II Results in Patients with Diastolic Dysfunction

In February 2025, we announced results from a retrospective analysis of the MODERATO II study’s data demonstrating favorable impact of AVIM therapy on Echo markers of DD, a key driver of heart failure progression. The results were presented as late-breaking science at the Technology and Heart Failure Therapeutics (“THT”) 2025 Conference. HTN is the leading cause of DD; both conditions are common in older patients and contribute to the development of heart failure.

The retrospective, treatment-blinded analysis of the MODERATO II study assessed the impact of 6 months on systolic blood pressure (“SBP”) and Echo markers of DD using core lab Echos with independent blinded adjudication. Patients were classified as with DD (“DD+”) or without DD (“DD-”) using ​the American Society of Echocardiography Guidelines. From the MODERATO II study cohort (n=47), 36 patients had technically sufficient Echo data, and 61% of this group (22/36) had Echo evidence of DD.

Using key measures of diastolic function, AVIM therapy:

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These findings provide further evidence that AVIM therapy, in addition to significantly reducing systolic blood pressure, may also favorably influence ventricular function in important ways for patients with DD and at risk for heart failure.

Clinical, Regulatory and Commercialization Pathway

The BACKBEAT Global Pivotal Study

On September 19, 2023, we announced that the FDA granted us IDE approval to initiate our planned BACKBEAT (BradycArdia paCemaKer with AVIM for Blood prEssure treAtmenT) global pivotal study (the “BACKBEAT study”) to treat uncontrolled HTN in patients indicated for a pacemaker. On January 8, 2024, we announced that the first patient was enrolled and randomized into the BACKBEAT study in late December 2023. The BACKBEAT study is a global, multi-center, prospective, randomized, double-blind study investigating the efficacy and safety of AVIM therapy in patients who have recently undergone implantation of a Medtronic dual-chamber cardiac pacemaker and have uncontrolled HTN despite the use of anti-hypertensive medications. We are actively screening patients for enrollment in the BACKBEAT study. Site activations are expected to continue throughout 2025 with a target of activating approximately 100 centers in the United States and Europe. The study will randomize approximately 500 patients 1:1 to AVIM therapy combined with continued medical therapy (treatment) or continued medical therapy and standard pacing alone (control). The study’s primary efficacy endpoint will determine at three months post-randomization whether AVIM-treated patients experience a statistically significant reduction in daily average blood pressure (mean 24-hour aSBP) as compared to control patients. The primary safety endpoint will determine at three months post-randomization whether AVIM-treated patients experience serious adverse device effects that are not anticipated with cardiac pacing. Double-blind follow up will continue through 12 months to enable the collection of additional clinical endpoints. All patients will be eligible to cross over upon completion of the 12-month blinded follow-up phase.

The design of the BACKBEAT study is outlined in the chart below:

During the third quarter of 2024, we implemented an FDA approved amendment to the BACKBEAT study protocol for existing and newly activated study sites. The protocol amendment is intended to improve patient engagement processes and significantly expand the window for screening and enrolling patients. Specifically, the updated protocol allows patients to consent and have initial blood pressure assessment prior to pacemaker implant and be screened and enrolled 30 days prior to and up to 365 days post-implant procedure. Previously, patients could not consent prior to implant and could only be screened and enrolled up to 90 days post-implant, substantially limiting the pool of eligible patients. The updated protocol also streamlines site coordinator and patient visit activities. We currently estimate completion of enrollment of the BACKBEAT study in the first half of 2026; however, there is no assurance that our current operating plan will be achieved.

We utilize a four-pronged approach to support clinical activities for AVIM therapy: (1) full-time employees to directly manage clinical studies and supervise external providers; (2) an external contact resource organization (“CRO”), that serves as the authorized and legal representative of the study sponsor, submits study protocol for approval by clinical site review boards and ethics committees, and reports adverse events; (3) local part-time independent clinical research associates and field clinical engineers (“FCEs”) sites that can assist with site initiations, clinical study activities and full data monitoring; and (4) FCE and other clinical and regulatory resources from Medtronic, our strategic partner, to assist with certain clinical study activities.

In the third quarter of 2019, the Moderato implantable system that delivers AVIM therapy for the treatment of uncontrolled HTN while also providing standard pacemaker functions was CE marked in the EU under the Active Implantable Medical Device Directive. We currently do not have plans to commercialize this system in the EU on our own but believe there is a significant opportunity for Medtronic to commercialize AVIM-enabled pacemakers in the EU post-marketing approval. We expect that the BACKBEAT study will include at least 20 clinical study sites in the EU, including several sites that participated in the MODERATO I and II studies.

For the clinical and regulatory development of AVIM therapy for uncontrolled HTN with high cardiovascular risk, we will seek to leverage data from the BACKBEAT study given that age and other demographic factors of the target population are expected to be similar, the type of HTN treated will likely be isolated systolic HTN which is a predominant form of HTN in the HTN+P population, and other comorbidities are also expected to be similar to both target populations.

AVIM Therapy & CNT-HF for Heart Failure

Our Bioelectronic Therapies group is also seeking to develop a pipeline of additional treatments for development and future licensing based on its patented CNT technology. The lead follow-on therapy candidate is CNT-HF, a bioelectronic treatment for HF. According to the AME Medical Journal, HF affects an estimated 64 million people worldwide. According to the Journal of Cardiac Failure, 6.7 million Americans have HF, which contributed to 1 in 8 deaths in the United States in 2024, while costing nearly $31.0 billion annually. AHA projects the cost of HF will increase by 127% to $69.8 billion in 2030, amounting to approximately $244 for every U.S. adult. Approximately half of the patients with signs and symptoms of heart failure have largely normal left ventricular ejection fraction and are therefore considered Heart Failure patients with Preserved Ejection Fraction (“HFpEF”), according to the AHA. The prevalence of HFpEF compared with prevalence of HF with reduced ejection fraction (“HFrEF”), appears to be increasing over time along with aging of the population and the increasing prevalence of risk factors for HFpEF, such as obesity, HTN, and type 2 diabetes as well as improvements in diagnosis, according to the AHA. Those living with HFpEF experience frequent hospitalizations and high mortality rates. Nevertheless, there are currently no approved disease-modifying therapies for HFpEF. The success of existing HF therapies is mostly limited to treatment of HFrEF, not HFpEF, according to GlobalData.

We are exploring the benefits of AVIM therapy in patients with HTN and/or ISH that are at high risk for the development of HFpEF or have early stage HFpEF. We believe there is a likely physiologic relationship between the cardiovascular strain of chronic HTN, particularly ISH, and other conditions such as DD, and the development of HF, particularly HFpEF. We believe AVIM therapy may play a beneficial role in the dynamic, helping to prevent progression of HFpEF.

We have also initiated clinical feasibility work with regard to CNT-HF, a modified cardiac neuromodulation therapy algorithm that, like AVIM therapy, aims to achieve autonomic nervous system modulation with a primary focus on sympathetic down-regulation without substantial impact on blood pressure for the treatment of HFrEF. HFrEF is a syndrome characterized initially by left ventricular dysfunction that triggers countermeasures aimed to restore cardiac output. These responses are compensatory at first but eventually become part of the disease process itself, leading to further worsening cardiac function. Among these responses is the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (“SNS”), that provides inotropic support to the failing heart increasing stroke volume, and peripheral vasoconstriction to maintain mean arterial perfusion pressure, but eventually accelerates disease progression affecting survival. Activation of SNS has been attributed to the withdrawal of normal restraining influences and the enhancement of excitatory inputs, leading to worsening heart failure symptoms and progression of disease.

We are conducting an ongoing European acute clinical study of CNT-HF for the treatment of patients with HFrEF. In total, we expect to treat over 20 HFrEF patients acutely with exploratory CNT-HF algorithms. If the results from these acute clinical studies are encouraging, we will likely seek to initiate a chronic feasibility implant clinical study of CNT-HF using an upgraded version of our Moderato IPG.

If shown to be safe and effective, we believe CNT-HF for the treatment of heart failure has the potential to be an attractive therapeutic candidate for licensing and collaboration with strategic partners that have established commercial cardiac rhythm management business. We anticipate that CNT-HF will run on a dual-chamber pacemaker, a three-chamber bi-ventricular pacemaker (also known as a cardiac resynchronization therapy or “CRT” device), as well as, potentially, a combined pacemaker/CRT/defibrillator, allowing potential strategic partners already in the cardiac rhythm management business to provide an entirely new HF treatment leveraging their existing manufacturing and commercialization infrastructure.

INTERVENTIONAL THERAPIES — Virtue SAB for Artery Disease and SirolimusEFR for Local Inflammation in Multiple Indications

We are developing high impact therapeutic product candidates designed to optimize focal drug delivery during well-established interventional procedures with the objective of improving clinical outcomes and reducing complications. Our flagship product candidate of the Interventional Therapies portfolio is the Virtue SAB, a drug-device product candidate that is designed to enable targeted delivery of sirolimus, an approved pharmaceutical agent for preventing restenosis during interventional stent treatment of artery disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. We have a global strategic partnership with Terumo, one of the world’s largest medical device companies, for Virtue SAB. We are also exploring multiple additional applications of SirolimusEFR, our proprietary, investigational extended focal release formulation of sirolimus used in Virtue SAB. Sirolimus is a widely used anti-proliferative, anti-inflammatory pharmaceutical. We believe its unique formulation has the potential for the treatment of local inflammation in target tissues other than coronary and peripheral arteries, and a broad array of additional indications in which we are conducting early exploratory work, such as urology.

Below is a detailed summary of Virtue SAB and an overview of potential future SirolimusEFR-based programs.

Virtue Sirolimus AngioInfusion Balloon

Virtue SAB is a novel, proprietary drug-device combination product candidate for the treatment of artery disease that is designed to deliver an extended focal release formulation of sirolimus to the vessel wall during balloon angioplasty without the need for balloon coating or a permanent implant. Virtue SAB utilizes two key enabling technologies, our proprietary, investigational formulation of sirolimus, SirolimusEFR, and its patented microporous AngioInfusion Balloon, that work synergistically to optimize the clinical performance of the product candidate. Clinical data from the SABRE trial, a multi-center, prospective, independent core lab-adjudicated pilot clinical study of 50 patients conducted in Europe, has positioned Virtue SAB for a U.S. pivotal clinical study to support potential FDA approval for the treatment of ISR. We will sponsor this study, called the Virtue ISR-US study. The aim of this study is to have Virtue SAB be the first approved AngioInfusion Balloon for coronary use in the United States. We believe Virtue SAB has the potential for further evaluation in follow-on clinical indications such as treatment of de novo coronary small vessel (“SV”) disease, below-the-knee peripheral disease (“BTK”), and other therapeutic areas such as urology. According to our current agreement, Terumo is responsible for executing a global clinical and regulatory development program focused on SV, BTK and coronary indications, except for the Virtue ISR-US trial, for which we have responsibility.

Strategic Partnership with Terumo

In June 2019, we entered into the Terumo Agreement with Terumo, one of the largest medical device companies in the world, with corporate headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, pursuant to which Terumo secured global commercialization rights for Virtue SAB in coronary and peripheral vascular indications (“Subject Indications”). Under the Terumo Agreement, Terumo made an upfront payment to us of $30.0 million and invested a total of $5.0 million in our last two private equity financings and may potentially make additional future clinical and regulatory milestone payments to us. Further, according to the agreement, which is currently in the process of being renegotiated, it is expected that Terumo will assume financial and execution responsibility for substantially all future clinical and regulatory development, except for the Virtue ISR-US trial, for which we are responsible. Our responsibilities in this regard with respect to the current agreement include completing the development of the product in the United States in support of Terumo filing for premarket approval by the FDA for the ISR indication including (i) manufacturing, testing and packaging the drug required for the clinical trials, (ii) supplying Terumo with information related to the design and manufacture of the delivery device and the technology transfer needed for Terumo to ultimately commence manufacture of the delivery device, and (iii) conducting clinical studies in the United States for the ISR indication, including regulatory activities related to such studies. Terumo will also be responsible for device manufacturing, commercial sales, marketing and distribution for Virtue SAB for coronary and peripheral vascular indications globally. The agreement also provides for us to be able to perform research, development, clinical, regulatory, manufacturing and supply activities on behalf of Terumo, if requested, and be reimbursed for such services or paid on a “cost plus” basis for supplies. In addition, we will manufacture, or have manufactured, SirolimusEFR and have exclusive rights to sell it on a per unit basis to Terumo for use in the Virtue SAB product, and Terumo may also request other services from us from time to time.

Pursuant to the Terumo Agreement, we share in all of Terumo’s Virtue SAB revenues during the term of the agreement through future royalties of 10 – 15% of net sales of Virtue SAB, and additional per unit payments for SirolimusEFR used in Virtue SAB for which we are the sole exclusive supplier. The initial term of the Terumo Agreement expires on the tenth anniversary of the date on which the first pre-market approval application (“PMA”) is obtained from the FDA for Virtue SAB for ISR, and thereafter automatically extends for five-year periods unless terminated by Terumo. Under the Terumo Agreement, we retain the rights to develop and license technology used in Virtue SAB, including SirolimusEFR, for clinical applications outside of coronary and peripheral vascular intervention.

Under the Terumo Agreement, we were initially eligible for certain milestone payments in the amount of $65 million from Terumo upon completion of certain minimum enrollments in clinical studies, making certain filings and submissions, and obtaining certain regulatory approvals and certifications, and are also eligible to earn royalties on future sales by Terumo based on royalty rates ranging from 10-15%. Of these milestone payments, $35 million relate to achieving certain milestones by specified target achievement dates. As of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the target achievement dates for three $5 million milestone payments has already passed. In addition, due to delays in our Virtue SAB program resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues and unexpected changes to regulatory requirements, including increased testing and other activities related to chemistry, manufacturing, and control, increased nonclinical and good laboratory practice preclinical data requirements, including biocompatibility, as well as a requirement to repeat good laboratory practice preclinical studies already performed based on changes to source of component materials and a change in manufacturing site, the Company is unlikely to be able to complete the remaining time-based milestones by the specified target achievement dates to earn the remaining $20 million in time-based milestone payments pursuant to the Terumo Agreement.

As previously disclosed, we have been negotiating with Terumo for mutually agreeable adjustments to the Terumo Agreement with the purpose of restructuring milestone payments as well as making other potential material modifications to that agreement, including additional financial commitments by Terumo to Orchestra and the Virtue SAB program. For additional information regarding recent developments concerning the Terumo Agreement, see “Overview—Recent Developments” In Item 7 (Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Market Needs — Coronary and Peripheral Artery Disease

Artery disease is caused by atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of the arteries due to the build-up of fatty material and plaque that reduces blood flow through the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle (coronary artery disease or “CAD”) or limbs (peripheral artery disease or “PAD”). CAD reduces blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart muscle and can result in angina, heart attack and lead to heart failure and arrhythmias. PAD can happen in any blood vessel, but it is more common in the legs than the arms and can lead to pain, muscle weakness, wounds and ulcers that are difficult to heal and, eventually, amputation.

According to the WHO, CAD is the top cause of global death, resulting in over 17.8 million deaths annually worldwide. The CDC estimates 18.7 million U.S. adults aged 20 and older have CAD (about 5.5%) and reported 695,000 CAD-driven deaths in the United States in 2021. The AHA estimates 2 in 10 deaths from CAD occur in adults under 65 years old.

The CDC also estimates approximately 8.5 million people over age 40 in the United States have PAD, including up to 20% of individuals older than age 60.

Interventional Cardiology

Interventional cardiology is a medical specialty that uses minimally invasive transcatheter, percutaneous technologies and techniques to treat artery disease and atherosclerosis. Catheter-based interventions using balloon angioplasty, stents and other technologies are the most common medical procedures used to treat artery disease and related conditions. There were over 6.4 million coronary and over 1.6 million peripheral catheter-based interventional procedures performed worldwide in 2022 according to Global Data & LSI Research. The global market for coronary interventional devices used to treat CAD, such as stent and balloon angioplasty systems, was valued at approximately $27.8 billion in 2024, and the global market for devices used to treat PAD, including angioplasty balloons, drug-coated balloons (“DCBs”), stents and atherectomy systems, was valued over $7.8 billion in 2022, according to market research firms Grand View Research and Straits Research.

The Evolution of Available Treatment Options

Balloon angioplasty is a procedure where small balloons integrated into catheters are introduced into the vascular system through a small puncture in the femoral artery in the leg or radial artery in the arm. Using specialized imaging technology called angiography, the balloon catheter is threaded through the vasculature to the site of blockage in an artery in the heart (coronary) or in the peripheral vessels. The balloon is then inflated using high pressures (up to 20 atmospheres) in order to crush the blockage (plaque) and expand the artery to restore blood flow.

While plain balloon angioplasty can offer significant clinical benefits, it also comes with drawbacks, such as elastic recoil, arterial remodeling or vascular smooth muscle cell excessive proliferation resulting in restenosis (vessel renarrowing) in response to balloon injury. These problems drove the development of bare metal stents (“BMS”) that are permanently implanted to hold a vessel open. These devices helped address elastic recoil and remodeling which helped reduce the impact of restenosis while also limiting the incidence of abrupt closure.

While the use of BMS helped address abrupt closure, it did not fully address the problem of restenosis in response to injury caused by the interventional procedure. Both angioplasty and stenting cause a stretch injury to the artery, resulting in a healing response whereby arterial smooth muscle cells proliferate and may block the artery again, a process known as restenosis. Restenosis can also occur over longer periods of time after a procedure because of the development of new atherosclerosis.

To help address the problems of restenosis, device manufacturers introduced drug-eluting stents (“DES”), which are stents coated with potent pharmaceutical agents that stop excessive cellular proliferation and thereby minimize ISR. The most commonly used drugs were sirolimus, ‘limus analogs and paclitaxel. Paclitaxel is a cytotoxic drug widely used in cancer chemotherapy. Paclitaxel interferes with cell division, leading to cell death. Sirolimus and other ‘limus analogs, on the other hand, are cytostatic drugs widely used as an immunosuppressant to prevent transplant rejection. Sirolimus works by blocking a key pathway critical to cell proliferation while allowing the cell to continue to function when sirolimus is no longer present. Sirolimus and its analogs, or ‘limus agents, can be administered in high doses without adverse effects, resulting in a low toxicity profile.

In a large meta-analysis of 76 studies in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, ‘limus-eluting stents outperformed paclitaxel-eluting stents. In a meta-analysis of 26 randomized controlled trials (“RCTs”), ‘limus-eluting stents demonstrated superior safety and efficacy with significantly lower MACE and target lesion revascularization, rates compared to paclitaxel-eluting stents (see figures below). Thus, ‘limus analog eluting stents have become the clear “gold standard,” with nearly 100% current global market share in the coronary DES marketplace.

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Source: Xinlin Zhang, et. al. PLOS ONE 2014 May 20;9(5):e97934.

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Definitions: Adj-OS = adjusted observational study; Cl = confidence interval; No. = number of the studies; Non-adj OS = non-adjusted observational study; PES = paclitaxel-eluting stents; RCT = randomized controlled trial; RR = relative risk; SES = sirolimus-eluting stent; TLR = target lesion revascularization One clearly demonstrated requirement for the use of sirolimus and other ‘limus agents in DES for the prevention of restenosis is that they be bioavailable for approximately 30 days at the treated lesion for optimal efficacy.

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This 30-day period is considered the critical healing period following the baseline interventional procedure during which the DES is implanted. For commercially successful DES products marketed by leading companies such as Medtronic, Abbott and Johnson & Johnson, the drug elution profile, or rate at which drug is released from the stent, has been specifically engineered and demonstrated in published preclinical results to provide drug availability for approximately 30 days. The critical importance of this 30-plus day elution profile for sirolimus and ‘limus agents is best demonstrated by Medtronic’s experience with its first DES product called Endeavor. The Endeavor DES was designed to have a faster drug release profile resulting an elution period of approximately 14 days. Clinical results with the Endeavor product were not favorable as compared to other commercially available DES. Subsequently, Medtronic developed and commercialized another DES product called Resolute that eluted Zotarolimus, a ‘limus agent proprietary to Medtronic, over more than 30 days. Medtronic conducted head-to-head clinical studies comparing Endeavor to Resolute demonstrating significantly superior clinical outcomes for Resolute in terms of Late Lumen Loss (“LLL”), and Target Lesion Failure (“TLF”). The figures below show the drug elution profile of the fast-eluting Endeavor DES compared to Resolute and the Cypher DES (Johnson & Johnson) and the Xience DES (Abbott), as well as clinical outcomes comparing Endeavor to Resolute.

1Tada, et. Al., Am Heart J. 2013 Jan; 165(1):80-6;

2Leon M. LBCT III, Session 3014. Presented at: ACC 60th Annual Scientific Sessions; April 2-5, 2011

While DES offer significant clinical improvements over plain balloon angioplasty and BMS, they have limitations, including the need for long-term use of dual antiplatelet therapy (having to use two types of antiplatelet agents) to address the new issues of late and very late stent thrombosis (formation of a blood clot) caused by delayed healing, local inflammation and impaired endothelial function around the stent. In addition, restenosis within a stent occurs in 5 – 10% of stented patients during the first year and continues at a rate of up to 3% per year thereafter, according to data from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry.

The limitations of DES prompted innovation for improved solutions that enable local delivery of anti-proliferative drugs while not leaving a permanent metal implant in the vessel. Bioabsorbable vascular scaffolds (“BVS”), were developed with the objective of performing like stents while eventually dissolving and leaving nothing behind after a few years. In July 2016, the first such device was approved by the FDA, Abbott’s Absorb Everolimus-eluting BVS. Unfortunately, this promising innovation has encountered several setbacks in clinical studies and upon commercialization. In September 2017, Abbott decided to pull Absorb from the market while other device manufacturers halted their in-progress programs. As a result, the attractive concept of “leave nothing behind” drug-eluting interventional therapy for coronary arteries remains unfulfilled. More recently, these devices are being explored for treatment of below-the-knee PAD, a challenging area of unmet need for which we believe Virtue SAB may warrant further development.

Drug-coated balloons have emerged during the last decade with the goal of providing the mechanical vessel expansion and anti-proliferative drug properties of DES while leaving nothing behind. We believe the concept of combining balloon angioplasty with simultaneous delivery of anti-proliferative medication may offer incremental benefits over available interventional therapies by (i) preserving the artery’s original anatomy; (ii) enabling treatment of vessels where DES delivery is challenging, such as small and bifurcated vessels; (iii) offering potential clinical improvement in lesions where available interventional devices have shown poor performance, including below-the-knee and restenotic lesions; and (iv) minimizing the dependency on long-term dual antiplatelet therapy and associated bleeding risks.

While having the potential to offer benefits over available interventional therapies, drug-coated balloons face some important challenges:

Comparison of ‘Limus Agents and Paclitaxel by Key Attributes Relevant to Drug-Coated Balloons

In addition, third-party clinical data demonstrated that 50 – 80% of drug was washed or scraped off during transit to the target lesion prior to balloon inflation. Concerns of drug loss in transit and risk of particulates have prompted existing drug-coated balloon manufacturers to recommend balloon inflation within 30 seconds of balloon insertion into the patient, making it challenging for physicians to reach target lesions and ensure proper placement in such a short period of time, particularly in difficult coronary and peripheral lesions such ISR, small vessel disease, and below-the-knee disease.

Despite the limitations of paclitaxel-based DCBs, they are now widely used in the EU and Japan for the treatment of coronary ISR, coronary SV disease and other coronary indications. EU clinical guidelines recommend the use of DCBs for the treatment of coronary ISR based on clinical evidence. On March 1, 2024, Boston Scientific Corporation (“BSC”) announced FDA approval for its AGENT™ paclitaxel-coated balloon for the treatment of coronary ISR. This approval follows BSC reporting preliminary results from its US pivotal study comparing the AGENT DCB to plain balloon angioplasty for the treatment of coronary ISR. These results showed statistical superiority for AGENT over plain balloon angioplasty with respect to the occurrence of TLF, the primary endpoint for the study. We believe FDA approval will lead to substantial clinical use of the AGENT DCB and that it will potentially become the new standard of care for coronary ISR. However, we believe the 17.9% reported rate of overall TLF is still high and creates a need and an opportunity for a differentiated, sirolimus-based product like Virtue SAB to demonstrate superior results and improve this standard of care.

Targeted Unmet Needs and Market Opportunity for Virtue SAB

We believe significant unmet needs remain in certain artery disease indications where treatment options are limited or fail to adequately improve patient outcomes, including ISR, SV, high bleeding risk patients undergoing percutaneous revascularization and BTK. We estimate these indications currently represent a total addressable global market opportunity of approximately 3.2 million treatable artery disease lesions. Further, based on its estimation of appropriate regional average selling prices, we estimate that the current aggregate annual global market opportunity for Virtue SAB is at least $4 billion.

The above estimates are based on, among other factors, our engagement with an established market research firm to conduct market analysis of the Virtue SAB global opportunity. This third party employed primary and secondary data gathering and analysis methods. Primary analysis involved multiple Q&A calls with industry-leading key opinion leaders to help assess the addressable patient population and the most addressable patient segments. Secondary data analysis was conducted by mining numerous subscription-based market databases, Medicare data and published literature. After gathering initial disease prevalence data, both we and the third party spent extensive time collaborating on further delineating potential procedure volumes for coronary ISR, coronary SV disease, and BTK peripheral disease that can be addressed by Virtue SAB, taking into consideration patient treatment pathways, anticipated product benefits, competitive landscape and reimbursement. The market size calculations accounted for patients with high bleeding risk, which overlaps with all three target indications, and we believe will be an important driver of adoption. Our above estimate of 3.2 million treatable artery disease lesions is based on third-party data, combined with our knowledge of market dynamics and anticipated product differentiation. Average selling price estimates were calculated by country or region based on existing competitive device prices, as well as estimated future pricing for Virtue SAB and future competitive devices. Terumo, our strategic partner for Virtue SAB, corroborated these estimates. Using the specific regional market size calculations by indication and the estimated ASPs, we value the future addressable market for Virtue SAB in its target indications to be at least $4 billion.

Reimbursement policies and coverage determinations for medical technologies are subject to evolving regulatory and market dynamics. The recent FDA approval and commercialization of BSC’s AGENT may establish a clearer reimbursement pathway for DCBs, potentially benefiting our future market access strategy. As payors define coverage policies, coding, and payment rates for AGENT, we may benefit from an established precedent and streamline our engagement with Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers, facilitating broader and more predictable coverage upon regulatory approval. Additionally, the adoption of a reimbursement framework for AGENT may expedite decision-making among payors, potentially leading to more favorable reimbursement terms for similar technologies, like Virtue SAB. While the evolving landscape presents opportunities, reimbursement determinations remain subject to various factors, including clinical differentiation, cost-effectiveness assessments, and provider adoption. We will continue to monitor and engage with key stakeholders to ensure alignment with emerging reimbursement policies that could enhance market access for Virtue SAB.

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Impact Potential of Virtue SAB

Virtue SAB is a proprietary drug-device combination product designed to deliver extended focal release sirolimus during angioplasty for the treatment of atherosclerosis and prevention of restenosis. The patented Virtue SAB is specifically designed to perform angioplasty, a well-established interventional procedure where high-pressure balloon inflation mechanically re-opens a clogged artery. It also simultaneously enables protected delivery and extended focal release of therapeutic levels of proven sirolimus over the critical healing period following angioplasty, which we believe could revolutionize intra-procedural arterial drug delivery by leaving nothing permanent behind in the artery. While Virtue SAB is designed to achieve certain results as described above and below, there is no guarantee that Virtue SAB will prove to be safe and effective. Virtue SAB is designed to overcome the limitations of drug-coated balloons by:

The differentiated design of Virtue SAB was made possible by combining two key technologies:

Virtue SAB System Components and Deployment

The Virtue SAB product candidate is under development to be provided in two packages:

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Since Virtue SAB is designed to work primarily as a balloon angioplasty catheter, the device most commonly used by interventional cardiologists, we believe it should be relatively easy for physicians to learn, adopt and use the device. The additional steps we expect will be required to reconstitute SirolimusEFR are straightforward and familiar to nurses and technicians. Following the standard preparation of the vessel and after identifying the appropriate balloon size, Virtue SAB is designed to be deployed in three easy steps:

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Preclinical Data

We have conducted extensive preclinical testing of Virtue SAB and its key enabling technologies (SirolimusEFR and the AngioInfusion Balloon), including feasibility work as well as Good Laboratory Practice (“GLP”) studies in support of regulatory filings and approvals. This work includes a variety of benchtop as well as small and large animal models. Large animal studies have been conducted in a porcine animal model, a widely used model for testing interventional cardiovascular devices. A particularly important series of preclinical studies involving 130 pigs and over 750 distinct artery treatment sites showed that Virtue SAB provided extended focal release of therapeutic levels of sirolimus through the critical healing period of approximately four weeks. The data from these preclinical studies was published in the peer-reviewed EuroIntervention Journal in 2016 and showed that Virtue SAB successfully delivered and enabled long-term focal delivery at the treatment site of a therapeutic sirolimus dose (above the 1ng of drug per mg of tissue). This therapeutic dose level has been clinically proven using DES to be safe and efficacious at reducing restenosis during the critical healing period of approximately 30 days post-procedure. These preclinical studies also showed very low systemic concentrations in cardiac tissue as well as critical organs, such as lungs, liver and kidneys, and did not show any adverse local or systemic effects.

Clinical Results

SABRE Study Results

The SABRE, or Sirolimus AngioInfusion (formerly angioplasty) Balloon for Coronary In-Stent Restenosis, first-in-human clinical study was initiated in November 2013 by Caliber Therapeutics, Inc., which is now our subsidiary. SABRE was a prospective, 50-patient feasibility study at nine European centers (Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark and Latvia), following patients for three years after Virtue SAB treatment, including angiographic follow-up at six months and clinical follow-up at one, two and three years.

Twelve-month follow-up data from the SABRE study, published in JACC Intervention in October 2017, demonstrated the clinical study performance of Virtue SAB in what we believe was a very challenging patient population with predominantly long, diffuse restenotic lesions within stents that had been implanted, on average, nearly four years prior to the study enrollment.

Clinicians in the study reported a 100% procedural success rate on a per patient basis (which was defined as the ability to successfully deliver and deploy the device at the lesion site) with Virtue SAB, suggesting the ease of use of the system. The primary safety endpoint was TLF at 30 days. TLF is commonly defined as a combination of MACE, which include cardiac death, target vessel myocardial infarction, as well as clinically (symptom) driven target lesion revascularization. The primary performance endpoint was six-month in-segment LLL, measured as the difference in the vessel lumen diameter immediately after the procedure compared to the follow-up at six months.

Preclinical Results

In March 2024, we shared preclinical pharmacokinetic (“PK”) data demonstrating that SostenocelTM, the proprietary polymer system enabling Virtue SAB’s SirolimusEFR, was shown to be eliminated in SirolimusEFR-treated stented arteries without detectable degradation. In other polymer-based delivery systems, degradation prior to elimination is associated with adverse events, such as the development of localized tissue inflammation. Specifically, the presented PK data showed that Sostenocel was undetectable at 90 days in treated arteries and at 3 days in all non-target tissues, and the molecular weight of Sostenocel remained unchanged prior to elimination, showing no evidence of in-vivo degradation. This is achievable through the focal uptake extended release of Sostenocel technology.

Revised Per-Protocol Population

A revised per-protocol population was determined based on analysis of procedural data by an independent core lab. This analysis identified 14 cases out the 50 patients treated in the SABRE study that represented serious violations of the established inclusion and exclusion criteria of the protocol for the study. Eight cases were excluded due to excessive proximity to the aorta or major side branches. Three cases were excluded due to treatment of lesions that were longer than the available Virtue SAB devices were designed to treat or because there were multiple lesions in the vessel where there was a target lesion. Finally, three cases were excluded due to previously stented restenosis (i.e., the lesion already had two overlapping treatment stents). The remaining 36 patients are referred to herein as the revised per-protocol, population.

Virtue SAB met the primary performance endpoint of the SABRE study with Virtue SAB demonstrating six-month in-segment LLL was 0.12 mm, a positive result as compared to the study target of 0.43 mm. Virtue SAB met the primary safety endpoint with zero reported TLFs at 30 days. The secondary performance endpoint of binary restenosis was also met with Virtue SAB achieving a rate of 2.8%. Revised per-protocol analysis showed a low 2.8% rate of TLF at one-year follow-up and 5.6% at three-year follow up. The increase in TLF after one year was because of the death of one study patient which was reported as multiple organ failure non-cardiac death and adjudicated as non-device and non-procedure related. Over the entire three-year period of the SABRE study, a total of 66 SAEs occurred in 32 of the 50 study patients (64.0%). A total of 29 SAEs in 18 patients were cardiac-related, of which:

A total of 37 SAEs in 25 patients were non-cardiac-related, none of them were adjudicated as “highly probable,” “probable,” or “possible” related to either the device treatment procedure or the investigational device. A total of eleven patients had both, cardiac- and non-cardiac-related SAEs.

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Intent to Treat Population

The intent-to-treat (“ITT”) population included all the patients enrolled in the study including those treated despite a significant protocol violation as noted above. The ITT analysis of the SABRE study demonstrated 0% MACE and TLF in hospital or at 30 days follow-up, 10.2% MACE and 8.2% TLF at six months, and 16.3% MACE and 14.3% TLF through three-year follow-up. LLL results were 0.31 mm at six months. We believe these results were encouraging given that the ITT population had a high percentage of difficult to treat diffuse lesions as well as lesions with an average time since original stent implantation of nearly four years which is substantially longer than typical ISR, which is most likely to occur 3 to 12 months after stenting.

Two-year and three-year clinical follow-up results from the SABRE study were presented at the TCT conference in 2017 and 2018, respectively. We believe the angiographic and clinical results of the SABRE trial are encouraging and provide the basis for it to conduct the upcoming Virtue ISR-US pivotal clinical study in coronary ISR. The diagrams below summarize the clinical results from this study.

Angiograms of Virtue SAB in Patients

The below images were best matched pairs of baseline and six-month follow-up angiograms identified and are included for illustrative purposes only to show the outcome of Virtue SAB administration in successfully treated patients. The below images are not intended to be representative of all the patients treated in the study and their respective outcomes.

Patient 1 (06-03): Patient presented with an 11.54 mm lesion in the mid-left circumflex artery. Lesion was previously treated with a BMS. The patient’s lesion was pre-dilated (a standard practice in drug-eluting balloon procedures) with a non-compliant balloon (a balloon that expands to one specific size independent of internal pressures commonly used to expand clogged arteries) and was treated with a 3.5 mm x 15 mm Virtue SAB. The patient had an excellent post-procedure outcome which was maintained through angiographic follow-up at 193 days. The LLL was measured at -0.03 mm.

Patient 2 (11-03): Patient presented with a 17.8 mm diffuse lesion of mid-left arterior descending artery following implantation of a DES seven months prior. After pre-dilatation with a scoring balloon (capable of achieving greater pressures and commonly used to open long, diffuse lesion), the lesion was treated with 3.25mm x 25mm Virtue SAB. The patient had an excellent post-procedure outcome, which was maintained through angiographic follow-up (at 175 days). The LLL was measured at -0.16mm.

Global Clinical and Regulatory Program

Per the current terms of the Terumo Agreement, we and Terumo plan to execute a global clinical and regulatory program for Virtue SAB for multiple indications, with an initial focus on coronary ISR, coronary SV, and peripheral BTK lesions. Under the Terumo Agreement, it is expected that Terumo will assume financial and execution responsibility for substantially all future clinical and regulatory development except for the Virtue ISR-US trial, the planned U.S. pivotal clinical study to support submission of a PMA application to the FDA for Virtue SAB for treatment of coronary ISR. For additional information regarding recent developments concerning the Terumo Agreement, see “Overview—Recent Developments” in Item 7 (Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

In 2019, the FDA confirmed that Virtue SAB will be regulated as a combination product candidate, with the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health as the lead review center of a marketing application. In addition, Virtue SAB has been granted Breakthrough Device designation in:

In August 2023, we announced that the FDA granted Orchestra IDE approval with conditions to initiate our planned Virtue ISR-US pivotal study evaluating the efficacy and safety of Virtue SAB for the treatment of patients with coronary ISR. We are permitted to begin enrollment of the study upon completion of standard clinical trial initiation activities including clinical center institutional review board (“IRB”) approvals. The conditional approval also requires us to submit additional information to the FDA.

Our IDE approval is currently for a study expected to randomize patients with coronary ISR lesions previously treated with single layer of stents in a two-to-one ratio of treatment with Virtue SAB versus plain balloon angioplasty. In March 2024, FDA approved Boston Scientific Corporation’s AGENTTM paclitaxel-coated balloon for the treatment of coronary ISR. As a result of this approval, we believe there will be robust additional reimbursement available, supporting an average selling price for AGENT that we estimate to be more than $5,500, based on published Boston Scientific analyst reports. In addition, we expect there will be strong physician interest to utilize the AGENT balloon. We have, therefore, elected to pursue an updated design for the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study. Following discussions with FDA, we now plan for the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study to randomize approximately 740 patients 1:1 to either treatment with Virtue SAB or AGENT with a primary efficacy and safety endpoint of statistical non-inferiority of target lesion failure (“TLF”) at 12 months post index treatment alternative. We currently expect to receive FDA approval for an amended IDE in the first half of 2025 and are targeting initiation of enrollment of the Virtue ISR-US pivotal study in the second half of 2025. We may elect to initiate enrollment regardless of the status or outcome of our negotiations with Terumo.

We currently expect to enroll patients for the updated Virtue ISR-US study at up to 65 study centers in the United States, the majority of which have already been identified and engaged to potentially participate in the study. The Virtue ISR-US study will be further supported by highly qualified third-party resources, including a CRO, an independent core lab and independent imaging analysis lab.

We currently anticipate using SABRE study results as well as Virtue ISR-US results to support regulatory approval for Virtue SAB for the treatment of coronary ISR outside the United States. In accordance with the Terumo Partnership, we and Terumo have established a Joint Steering Committee (“JSC”) to oversee the development and commercialization of Virtue SAB. We have the right to participate in negotiations with regulatory bodies regarding study designs and other requirements for approval. The Terumo Agreement also provides for ways for us to support further clinical and regulatory development through the active involvement of its team and advisors, and it is anticipated that any such support work provided by us would be reimbursed by Terumo. Through the JSC, our role in regulatory negotiations and other active collaboration with Terumo, we expect to influence, monitor and help drive the execution of the global clinical and regulatory program for Virtue SAB.

SirolimusEFR — Additional Interventional Therapies Product Candidates and Development Initiatives

We are also seeking to establish a pipeline of additional targeted therapeutic product candidates for development and future licensing based on our proprietary SirolimusEFR formulation as well as, potentially, the microporous AngioInfusion balloon technology used in the Virtue SAB. SirolimusEFR is an investigational, extended focal release formulation of sirolimus, enabled by our proprietary Sostenocel technology. We believe the ability of its Sostenocel technology to enable localized, targeted delivery and extended tissue release of sirolimus offers the potential for new and impactful therapeutic applications of SirolimusEFR. Sirolimus, a pharmaceutical agent also known as rapamycin, is a macrolide compound that is used to treat artery disease (drug-eluting stents or drug-coated balloons), prevent organ transplant rejection, treat rare lung disease called lymphangioleiomyomatosis, and shown to be effective against various tumor types. In addition to these approved indications, sirolimus and its analogs have been studied for potential clinical benefit in a broad array of medical conditions.

Sirolimus and its analogs act to inhibit the mammalian target of rapamycin, which regulates cellular metabolism, growth, and proliferation. Through its cystostatic mechanism of action, sirolimus prevents cell replication and proliferation while the drug is present in cells and tissues. Unlike cytotoxic agents such as paclitaxel, however, sirolimus does not kill the cells it affects, and these cells return to normal function once the drug is no longer present. This safer anti-proliferative mechanism makes sirolimus a valuable pharmaceutical agent to suppress undesirable immune system activity, which is why systemic use of high doses of sirolimus is the primary treatment to prevent rejection of transplanted organs. It also makes sirolimus useful as an anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic agent, which is one of the primary reasons it was chosen as an anti-restenotic drug to coat on the surface of a permanent arterial stent. However, the therapeutics effects of sirolimus are limited by the amount of time sirolimus is present at a therapeutic concentration. The known half-life of sirolimus is short, approximately 62 hours. Sirolimus has an attractive safety profile and a wide therapeutic window which allows for relatively high dosing thresholds before risk of toxicity. However, using systemic delivery of the drug to achieve therapeutic effects in targeted tissues or organs requires regular systemic dosing, increasing the risk of off-target effects and toxicity.

Our proprietary Sostenocel technology is designed to facilitate a localized tissue depot of sirolimus and enable extended focal release of sirolimus over typical critical healing period of approximately 30 days, potentially overcoming the challenges of sirolimus’ short half-life. While our Sostenocel technology is designed to achieve certain results as described above, there is no guarantee that it will prove to be safe and effective.

We retain all rights to develop additional therapies using our proprietary SirolimusEFR to potentially treat focal inflammation outside of coronary and peripheral vascular indications. Further, we are currently working on all chemistry, manufacturing and controls (“CMC”) testing for our IDE submission for the combination product Virtue SAB that includes populating a drug master file (“DMF”). We believe this DMF will be helpful in supporting additional vascular regulatory indications for Virtue SAB as well as future potential non-vascular indications for SirolimusEFR, with or without our microporous angioinfusion balloon technology. Depending on the indication, we may be able to leverage some of the biocompatibility and CMC data in the DMF, while providing additional data depending on the indication selected. Leveraging CMC data in the DMF, as well as other preclinical, clinical and device testing work related to Virtue SAB, may allow us to advance development of additional SirolimusEFR-based product candidates at an accelerated pace and at reduced cost, although no assurances can be given that development will proceed faster or at lower expense than otherwise expected.

We are evaluating the use of SirolimusEFR through a balloon device treatment and delivery system similar to our AngioInfusion Balloon or simply as a direct focal injection for treatment of additional indications associated with major medical conditions for which mature procedure-based markets already exist. We will seek to identify and initiate discussions with potential strategic partners when we believe sufficient data and evidence is available to support a potential business collaboration.

Therapeutic Medical Device Innovation — Opportunities and Challenges

Opportunities

Therapeutic medical device innovations that can help reduce healthcare costs while improving clinical outcomes are a critical component of successful healthcare delivery and offer opportunities for clinical and commercial value creation. We were founded on the belief that accelerated development and commercialization of such innovations represents an opportunity to generate significant stockholder value while producing substantial clinical benefit to patients suffering from life-threatening and life-diminishing medical conditions. The following summarizes several of the key factors we believe are driving the overall therapeutic device market opportunity:

Challenges

Despite the substantial and growing need for innovative medical device solutions, significant barriers of cost, time and work prevent many such innovations from reaching patients. Smaller start-up companies that typically develop novel therapies often struggle for resources to reach clinical and commercial value inflection, while large multinational medical device companies have constrained research and development budgets that limit investment in innovation and development-stage acquisitions. Based on data tracking medical device startups during the prior decade, companies that raise capital beyond Series A now require an average of $60 million in funding. In addition, over the last two decades, the medical device industry has undergone significant consolidation, with a similar goal of creating efficiencies as well as to maintain strategic relevance with their customers as hospitals and other providers seek to consolidate and extract savings from their supplier base. This global consolidation of the healthcare ecosystem creates significant challenges for emerging medical device companies, including:

Our Growth Strategy

Our growth strategy is primarily focused on the execution of key development initiatives and partnership opportunities within our existing product pipeline, with the objective to advance these product candidates to key value inflection points and to form strategic partnerships for commercial value realization. This includes advancing clinical study activities for our flagship product candidates, as well as moving earlier stage product candidates further into clinical development. In the future, we will look to potentially expand our pipeline through collaborations or spinouts with corporate partners, targeted acquisitions that are made in parallel to forming strategic collaborations, royalty-based research and development partnerships, as well as highly selective organic development or intellectual property licensing.

We intend to carefully screen new opportunities utilizing our focused innovation selection criteria to ensure a fit with our partnership-enabled business model.

Our Team and Innovation History

We are led by a highly accomplished, multidisciplinary management team with extensive experience and strong expertise in all phases of therapeutic product development. Our senior management team, including the vice president-level and above, has over 300 years of combined experience, with an average tenure of 25 years in the development and commercialization of procedure-based innovations for major clinical indications. Our team’s expertise includes clinical need and market analysis, product design and intellectual property prosecution, clinical and regulatory execution, as well as supply chain and quality system development. Members of our senior management team have been personally involved in the development and regulatory approval or clearance of over 100 products and have helped author over 600 patent applications. Our executive team is guided by a seasoned and highly accomplished board of directors with knowledge and experience in the healthcare industry, including medical devices, biotechnology and clinical medicine, as well as business operations, strategy, finance and capital markets. Further, our product development efforts are supported by world-renowned medical advisors who are physicians and scientists recognized for their knowledge of specific disease states and treatment options available, as well as their ability to quickly assess new technologies for clinical feasibility and likelihood of adoption.

All of the product candidates in our pipeline were conceived and developed by our management team and employees through predecessor companies founded by a medical device accelerator, Accelerated Technologies, Inc. (“ATI”). ATI was originally founded in 2000 and employed active collaboration with industry-leading physicians to identify and purpose-build transformational therapeutic devices. Our founders and senior executives, Mr. David Hochman, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Darren Sherman, our President and Chief Operating Officer, joined ATI in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Prior to their joining, ATI was associated with the development of approved devices such as transcatheter aortic valve replacement (Percutaneous Valve Technologies, Inc., which was acquired by Edwards Lifesciences Corp.

in 2003) and catheter-based temporary ventricular support (Impella CardioSystems AG, which was acquired by ABIOMED, Inc. in 2005). Mr. Hochman and Mr. Sherman assumed control of ATI in 2009 and proceeded to found new companies that developed Virtue SAB (Caliber Therapeutics), AVIM therapy (BackBeat Medical), and the FreeHold Duo and Trio Retractors (FreeHold Surgical). Legacy Orchestra’s business was formed in May 2018 upon the merger of these three entities and a concurrent recapitalization. ATI was subsequently acquired by Legacy Orchestra in December 2019.

Our Strategic Holdings

We own outright or maintain ownership of minority equity interests, convertible debt and/or royalty-stream interests in additional therapeutic device assets currently undergoing early-stage commercialization and further product development that we believe have growth and value appreciation potential. Our objective is to create and realize additional stockholder value through ownership in innovative therapeutic product solutions in core, adjacent and synergistic medical segments. Our strategic holdings include:

Targeted Commercialization — we estimate over 20,000 procedures using FreeHold devices have been performed in the United States to date, primarily in bariatric (obesity) and foregut (GI, metabolic) surgeries with some initial experience in paraaortic node dissections (gynecologic oncology), nephrectomies (kidney removal) and cholecystectomies (gallbladder removal). FreeHold’s targeted commercial development program involves only two dedicated sales representatives targeting hospitals in the United States to demonstrate clinical utility and commercial demand for FreeHold Devices.

Strategic Potential — we believe FreeHold devices have been optimized for strategic partnership because they are highly differentiated, enabling products that fit into current treatment paradigm, are easy to use with a relatively short learning curve and have sufficiently high profit margins that provide potential for partnering to enable a revenue sharing arrangement.

Formation and Conversion to a Limited Liability Company — In May 2018, Legacy Orchestra completed its acquisition of FreeHold Surgical, Inc., a Delaware corporation that has, among other things, the rights to our FreeHold Devices. FreeHold Surgical, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in May 2010 and began development of its hands-free, intracorporeal retractors for minimally invasive surgery in 2012. In December 2019, Legacy Orchestra converted FreeHold Surgical, Inc., a Delaware corporation, to FreeHold Surgical, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. References in this annual report to FreeHold refer to FreeHold Surgical, Inc. prior to its conversion to a limited liability company and to FreeHold Surgical, LLC after its conversion to a limited liability company, as applicable.

Market Opportunity & Commercial Experience — We estimate that there are approximately 1.5 million inpatient colonoscopy procedures that were performed in the U.S. and approximately 4.8 million worldwide annually, based on our analysis of market data and projections from iData Research Inc. Upper GI bleeds occurred in the U.S. at a rate of approximately 400,000 cases per year in 2019, according to iData Research Inc. The Pure-Vu System has been assigned an ICD-10 reimbursement classification code in the U.S. and we believe the clinical and health economic benefits offered by the Pure-Vu System make its use financially supportable under existing reimbursement payments for inpatient procedures. The Pure-Vu System does not currently have unique or dedicated reimbursement codes for specific additional reimbursement with any private or governmental third-party payors in any other country or for any other use; however, we may pursue reimbursement activities in the future. The Pure-Vu® System is designed to reduce the time required to complete colonoscopy procedures, which may make it attractive to closed healthcare systems, such as the Veterans Affairs hospital system (“VA”), that are insured by their constituents and bear the cost burden of lengthened hospital stays due to colonoscopy preparation. The Pure-Vu System is designed to reduce hospital stays through more efficient colonoscopy procedures, potentially saving money and expediting care. Additionally, VA patients may have increased complications with colonoscopy preparation due to the co-morbidities that veterans can experience. Thus, the potential clinical benefit to VA patients of the Pure-Vu product may be important as well, as the system is designed to remove debris and enhance the field of view during a colonoscopy procedure in the event the pre-procedure preparation was not optimal. The Pure-Vu System is currently in pilot commercial use in 8 hospitals in the U.S., including two VA hospitals. We anticipate increasing Pure-Vu System pilot use to approximately 20 U.S. hospitals in 2025, with a particular focus on the VA where we anticipate conducting structured clinical evaluations aimed at supporting broader VA system adoption. We also expect to support utilization and clinical evaluations at select hospitals in the EU and Israel.

Strategic Potential — We believe use of the Pure-Vu® System has the potential to help achieve better clinical outcomes and lower costs for hospitals by safely and quickly improving visualization of the colon and upper GI tract, potentially enabling effective diagnosis and treatment without delay. In multiple clinical studies to date, involving the treatment of challenging inpatient and outpatient cases, the Pure-Vu® System has consistently helped achieve adequate bowel cleanliness rates greater than 95% for inpatients and outpatients following a reduced prep regimen. We also believe that the technology may be useful in the future as a tool to help reduce user dependency on conventional pre-procedural bowel prep regimens and enhance the treatment of acute upper GI bleeding. We believe the Pure-Vu System is potentially attractive for strategic partnership because it is a proprietary enabling technology that addresses significant unmet needs in a large established global market, its usage fits into current treatment paradigms and is easy enough to use with a relatively short learning curve, and its disposable component has sufficiently high profit margins that provide potential for partnering to enable a revenue sharing arrangement.

Acquisition of Motus Entities — In October 2024, we entered a Share and Membership Interest Purchase Agreement with the previously publicly traded company, Motus GI Holdings, Inc. and its lender, Kreos Capital VI, LP. to acquire the Motus Entities for the rights to the intellectual property of the Pure-Vu® System.  

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Our Research and Development

We invest in research and development efforts that advance and expand our product pipeline. Our goals are to: (1) deliver on clinical, regulatory and commercial development objectives for Virtue SAB set forth in collaboration with our strategic partner, Terumo; (2) deliver on clinical, regulatory and commercial development objectives for AVIM therapy set forth in collaboration with our strategic partner, Medtronic; and (3) further develop pipeline product candidates towards future partnerships with potential strategic partners. Our research and development expenses totaled $42.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, and $33.8 million and $21.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively.

We believe our ability to rapidly develop innovative product candidates is attributable to the dynamic product innovation process that we have implemented, the versatility and leveragability of our core technologies and our partnership-enabled business model that drives our innovation objectives and research and development process. We have recruited and retained engineers and scientists with significant experience in the development of medical devices. We have a pipeline of product candidates in various stages of development that are expected to provide additional strategic opportunities. Our research and development efforts are based at our facilities in New Hope, Pennsylvania and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Our Manufacturing and Supply

Bioelectronic Therapies (AVIM Therapy and CNT-HF)

Our wholly owned subsidiary, BackBeat Medical previously contracted with a business unit of Integer under an agreement (the “Integer Agreement”) to develop and manufacture the Moderato device. The Moderato device consists of an IPG powered by a primary battery, a programming system integrated by a programmer interface, a telemetry wand and a software application capable of programming standard pacing functions as well as the different parameters of AVIM therapy. All intellectual property that Integer developed for BackBeat Medical during the performance of the Integer Agreement, whether developed independently or jointly, and that resulted from or uses BackBeat Medical’s technology or intellectual property are owned by BackBeat Medical. Under the Integer Agreement, Integer provided BackBeat Medical a perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid, assignable, world-wide, non-exclusive license for the device-incorporated Integer property, allowing the use of the incorporated Integer property only within BackBeat Medical’s field of use (electrical therapies, particularly cardiac pacing for (i) treatment of HTN and (ii) rhythm management in patients that were implanted with a device for the treatment of HTN). We also utilize the services of external consultancy firms for quality and regulatory services related to Moderato devices to supplement its internal capabilities. As of the date of this filing, we do not anticipate receiving any new Moderato devices under the Integer Agreement. 

Medtronic has completed integration and associated validation and verification testing of AVIM therapy algorithms as a field downloadable addition to its premium, commercially available dual-chamber pacemaker systems for use in the BACKBEAT study. Medtronic is also providing clinical and regulatory resources in support of the pivotal study. We are reimbursing Medtronic at cost for these development, clinical and regulatory resources. Medtronic will integrate AVIM therapy, at our cost, as a firmware component of a premium pacemaker for potential regulatory approval and commercialization of AVIM-enabled commercial devices following a successful outcome of the BACKBEAT study.

In February 2023, we also contracted with MEDICO S.R.L. to develop a dual chamber pacemaker device that meets our specifications for running our cardiac neuromodulation therapies as well as standard pacing algorithms. This new device platform is designed to allow us to conduct CNT program studies for potential expanded indications and populations, including certain heart failure patients. Initial devices have been delivered and we are actively engaging centers with a new protocol to conduct clinical evaluations expected to commence in 2025.

Interventional Therapies (Virtue SAB, SirolimusEFR and Sostenocel)

Microporous AngioInfusion Balloon and other device components of Virtue SAB.

Under the current terms of the Terumo Agreement, Terumo has agreed to assume responsibility for managing the supply chain associated with the Microporous AngioInfusion Balloon and other device components used in Virtue SAB prior to commercialization. Currently, we manage the supply chain and these devices are manufactured by a selected group of third parties contracted by us.   We are prepared to transition the management of the device supply chain and its various vendors over the course of the Virtue ISR-US study. All of Virtue SAB’s key suppliers and vendors carry the proper quality system certification and/or FDA approvals for the activity they are providing in support of the manufacturing, testing, storage and distribution of components, materials, services or final product.

SirolimusEFR.

We have internal capabilities for small scale production (300 vials per run), lyophilization, and characterization testing for SirolimusEFR. Clinical and commercial production has been contracted through an established clinical manufacturing organization with large scale current Good Manufacturing Practice (“cGMP”) production capabilities. We have scaled clinical production with an external manufacturing partner to achieve a capacity of approximately 3,000 vials per run with further scaling planned to reach planned commercial production capacity. Additional contract vendors provide polymer synthesis capabilities based on world-class polymer expertise in order to supply enabling components to the Sostenocel technology used to create SirolimusEFR. cGMP syntheses have been performed, with extensive analytical method and quality control development complete. Synthesis of custom polymers has successfully achieved clinical scale with ongoing work to scale processes to commercial scale.

FreeHold Devices

We utilize an FDA-registered and ISO 13485-certified U.S.-based manufacturing partner to manufacture FreeHold Duo and Trio intracorporeal retractors. Our manufacturing partner also provides warehousing and distribution of its products to qualified customers based on orders placed by customers to its FreeHold Surgical subsidiary. We have utilized the same manufacturing partner since the time of FDA product registration. Further, our manufacturing partner has achieved a greater than 99% on-time order delivery rate to our customers.

Motus Devices

We have established relationships with research facilities, contract manufacturing organizations, or CMOs, and our collaborators to manufacture and supply our product for our initial U.S. market development efforts targeting early adopter hospitals and selective closed systems like the Veterans Affairs hospital system. Currently, the workstation component of our Pure-Vu® System is manufactured by Sanmina Corporation at their facilities in Israel. The disposable portion of the Pure-Vu EVS is manufactured by Sterling Industries in their Michigan, U.S. facility. These manufacturing suppliers have extensive experience in medical devices and in dealing with regulatory bodies and other competent entities. These suppliers have ISO 13485 certified quality systems. We have an agreement in place with a third-party logistics provider in the U.S. who is ISO 13485 certified and specializes in medical devices and equipment. They provide warehousing, shipping and back-office support to meet our commercial needs with respect to our Pure-Vu® System.

Our Competition

The medical device industry is intensely competitive, subject to rapid change and significantly affected by new product introductions and other market activities of industry participants. We compete or plan to compete with developers, manufacturers and distributors of cardiovascular and other medical devices. Regarding Virtue SAB, our most notable competitors in the highly competitive interventional cardiology field include Boston Scientific Corporation, Medtronic plc, Becton Dickinson, Philips N.V., B. Braun, Abbott Laboratories, Cordis, BIOTRONIK, Inc., Concept Medical, Inc., MedAlliance S.A., MicroPort, and others. Regarding AVIM therapy, our most notable competitors in the highly competitive field of device therapies for HTN as well as cardiac rhythm management devices include Abbott Laboratories, Boston Scientific Corporation, BIOTRONIK, Inc., MicroPort CRM, ReCor Medical, cvRx, Inc., Vascular Dynamics, Inc., Ablative Solutions, Inc., Sonovie, Ltd. and others.

Many of these competitors are large, well-capitalized companies with significantly greater market share and resources than we have. Consequently, they are able to spend more on product development, marketing, sales and other product initiatives than we can. We also compete with smaller medical device companies that have single products or a limited range of products. Some of these competitors have:

We believe that our proprietary AVIM therapy, Virtue SAB and other pipeline technologies, our partnership-enabled business model, our strategic partnerships, such as the Medtronic Collaboration for AVIM therapy and Terumo Partnership for Virtue SAB, and our organizational culture and strategy will be important factors in our future success. We compete primarily on the basis that our products are designed to improve outcomes, reduce complications and provide distinct commercial advantages that can be leveraged by us and our strategic partners. Our continued success depends on our, and in some cases, our strategic partners’ ability to:

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Our Intellectual Property

Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights, and, in particular, our patent rights, as well as our ability to preserve the confidentiality of our trade secrets, and operate without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the valid and enforceable patents and other intellectual property rights of third parties. We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright and other intellectual property rights and take measures to protect the intellectual property rights that we consider important to our business.

The term of individual patents depends upon the legal term for patents in the countries in which they are granted. In most countries, including the United States, the patent term is 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date of a non-provisional patent application in the applicable country. In the United States, a patent’s term can be extended to recapture a portion of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (the “USPTO”) delay in processing the patent to issue as well as restore a portion of the term effectively lost as a result of the FDA regulatory review period. However, as to the FDA component, the restoration period cannot be longer than five years and the total patent term including the restoration period must not exceed 14 years following FDA approval. The duration of patents outside of the United States varies in accordance with provisions of applicable local law, but typically is also 20 years from the earliest effective filing date. However, the actual protection afforded by a patent varies on a product-by-product basis, from country to country and depends upon many factors, including the type of patent, the scope of its coverage, the availability of regulatory-related extensions, the availability of legal remedies in a particular country and the validity and enforceability of the patent. We cannot be sure that our pending patent applications that we have filed or may file in the future will result in issued patents, and we can give no assurance that any patents that have issued or might issue in the future will protect our current or future products, will provide us with any competitive advantage, and will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented.

We also rely on trade secret know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect our proprietary rights through a variety of methods, including confidentiality agreements with suppliers, consultants and others who may have access to our proprietary information and proprietary information and inventions agreements with our employees. However, trade secrets and proprietary information can be difficult to protect. While we take measures to protect and preserve our trade secrets and proprietary information, such measures can be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach. In addition, our competitors may independently discover or develop the same trade secrets and proprietary information as us. To the extent that our suppliers, employees, consultants and others use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, we may be subject to allegations of infringement and further disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting improvements, know-how and inventions.

Our success also depends in part on not infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties. It is uncertain whether the issuance of any third-party patent would require us to alter our development or commercial strategies, or our product candidates or processes, obtain licenses or cease certain activities. Our breach of any license agreements or failure to obtain a license to intellectual property rights that we may require to develop or commercialize our future product candidates may have an adverse impact on the business. If third parties have prepared and filed patent applications in the United States prior to March 16, 2013 (the date when U.S. patent law changed from granting rights to the first-to-invent to the first-to-file) that also claim technology to which we have rights, we may have to participate in interference proceedings in the USPTO to determine priority of invention. Assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, prior to March 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent. After March 2013, under the America Invents Act, enacted in September 2011, the United States transitioned to a first inventor to file system in which, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether a third party was the first to invent the claimed invention. For more information regarding the risks related to our intellectual property, please see the section titled “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property.”

Trademarks

As of December 31, 2024, we have 8 trademarks that are approved in the United States: “Orchestra BioMed,” “Moderato,” “Virtue”, “FreeHold Surgical,” “FreeHold Duo,” “FreeHold Trio,” “Pure-Vu System,” and “Motus GI.” A further 9 applications for trademark registration are pending, covering “OBIO,” “SirolimusEFR,” “AngioInfusion,” “Virtue Sirolimus AngioInfusion Balloon,” “BackBeat Medical,” “BackBeat CNT,” “BackBeat Cardiac Neuromodulation Therapy,” “Sostenocel,” and “MICRO-PREP.” The trademark “Orchestra Biomed Inc.” is approved in Japan (only). This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains references to our trademarks and service marks and to those belonging to other entities.

Solely for convenience, trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including logos, artwork, and other visual displays, may appear without the ® or ™ symbols, but such references are not intended to indicate in any way that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our right or the rights of the applicable licensor to these trademarks and trade names. We do not intend our use or display of other entities’ trade names, trademarks, or service marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, any other entity.

Material Patents

As of December 31, 2024, we owned 236 patents globally, of which 82 were issued U.S. patents and 154 were patents outside of the United States.

Our issued patents expire between February 2025 and April 2041. Despite the near-term expiration of certain of our material patents, we believe that our other patents, as well as our trade secrets and continuing technological know-how, provide us with sufficient intellectual property protection to develop our product candidates and protect our intellectual property.

Below is a more specific overview of our intellectual property as it relates to our pipeline programs by modality:

Bioelectronic Therapies (AVIM therapy and CNT-HF)

AVIM therapy and CNT-HF are protected by an intellectual property portfolio which currently includes 44 issued U.S. patents and 87 issued patents in countries outside of the United States encompassing devices, algorithms, and methods. These issued patents, and any patents granted from such applications, will, or are expected to, expire between 2025 and 2041, without taking potential patent term extensions or adjustments into account. Additional patent applications are filed on a regular basis. BackBeat issued patents are divided between CNT and CNT-HF as follows: 41 issued U.S. patents and 73 issued patents in countries outside of the United States protect CNT, and which are exclusively licensed to Medtronic in the Primary Field pursuant to the Medtronic Agreement; three issued U.S. patents and 14 issued patents in countries outside of the United States protect CNT-HF; and a further 39 patent applications were filed protecting AVIM therapy.

In addition to customary early termination provisions, the Medtronic Agreement will terminate on the date no further revenue share payments are due under the Medtronic Agreement and Medtronic’s license under the Medtronic Agreement would become fully paid up, perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free. Revenue share payments with respect to each applicable country (or group of countries) are to be paid for a minimum period of time determined by the latest to occur of (a) the expiration of the last valid claim of certain specified patents (as well as any patents claiming priority to, from or through such patents) (the “Patent-Based Expiration”) or (b) the date that is 12 years after the first commercial sale of any AVIM-enabled pacemakers in the applicable country or group of countries (the “Time-Based Revenue Share Expiration”). Accordingly, to the extent AVIM-enabled pacemakers receive regulatory approval and are sold commercially, Medtronic’s obligation to make payments to us will extend to at least approximately 2041 under the Time-Based Revenue Share Expiration, regardless of the expiration any of our patents. Further, such date may be extended up to an additional five years based on the Medtronic Agreement which provides that the Patent-Based Expiration may be extended until the expiration of patents that may be issued based on additional patent applications that we have filed prior to entering into the Medtronic Agreement, although no assurance can be given that such patents will be issued or any claims associated with newly issued patents will be valid. To the extent there are revenue share payments made under the Medtronic Agreement after the Time-Based Revenue Share Expiration and prior to the Patent-Based Expiration, those payments would likely be based on intellectual property we develop in the future, and not the current patents held by us.

AVIM therapy and CNT-HF are also protected by trade secrets and proprietary know-how. We seek to protect its proprietary technology and processes, in part, by confidentiality agreements and invention assignment agreements with its employees, consultants, scientific advisors, contractors and commercial partners.

We will continue to endeavor to obtain and maintain patent protection worldwide on select patentable aspects of AVIM therapy and CNT-HF as well as to protect our trade secrets and proprietary know-how.

The following table lists our material patents relating to AVIM therapy and CNT-HF as of December 31, 2024, their jurisdiction and expiration date:

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Interventional Therapeutics (Virtue SAB, SirolimusEFR and Sostenocel)

We rely on intellectual property protection for Virtue SAB and its enabling technologies, including SirolimusEFR and the AngioInfusion Balloon, based on protection of proprietary particle drug encapsulation technology through trade secrets and proprietary know-how; and through issued patents and patent applications in process covering key aspects of Virtue SAB’s micro-porous balloon system and integration of its drug encapsulation formulation with the device.

Virtue SAB is currently protected by 7 issued U.S. patents and 21 issued patents outside the United States with additional patent applications pending in the United States and in countries outside of the United States covering key aspects of Virtue SAB product design, clinical application and enabling technology. These issued patents, and any patents granted from such applications, will, or are expected to, expire between 2028 and 2032, without taking potential patent term extensions or adjustments into account. The foregoing patents are exclusively licensed to Terumo for the Subject Indications during the term of the Terumo Agreement. We will continue to selectively advance certain aspects of Virtue SAB toward submission of appropriate patent applications. A further six published patent applications were filed to protect Virtue SAB.

Pursuant to the current Terumo Agreement, we share in all of Terumo’s Virtue SAB revenues during the term of the agreement through future royalties of 10 – 15% of net sales of Virtue SAB, and additional per unit payments for SirolimusEFR used in Virtue SAB for which we are the sole exclusive supplier. The initial term of the Terumo Agreement expires on the tenth anniversary of the date on which the first PMA is obtained from the FDA for Virtue SAB for ISR, and thereafter automatically extends for five-year periods unless terminated by Terumo. Payments under the Terumo Agreement are not tied to the expiration of our patents.

Our Sostenocel technology and SirolimusEFR are intentionally protected by trade secrets and proprietary know-how, as we believe the design and manufacture of this formulation would be highly difficult to develop or reverse engineer. Seeking patent protection for these processes would have required detailed publication of proprietary information without certainty of patent claim issuance or protection.

Development and production of SirolimusEFR have been refined and scaled to support the Virtue ISR-US trial and other trials we plan to conduct to support commercialization of SirolimusEFR. Production scaling and manufacturing processes are central components of the proprietary trade secret and proprietary know-how of the intellectual property protection of Virtue SAB and other future product candidates involving SirolimusEFR.

Virtue SAB is also protected by trade secrets and proprietary know-how that was intentionally not made public or published in patent applications. We believe the strategy to avoid publication of proprietary methods as long as possible has been an important part of maintaining the differentiation and advantages of Virtue SAB. Trade secrets and proprietary know-how include aspects of formulation, materials production, and manufacturing of Virtue SAB. Such trade secrets and proprietary information is used to develop and maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect our proprietary technology and processes, in part, by confidentiality agreements and invention assignment agreements with its employees, consultants, scientific advisors, contractors and commercial partners.

We will continue to endeavor to obtain and maintain patent protection worldwide on select patentable aspects of Virtue SAB as well as to protect our trade secrets and proprietary know-how.

The following table lists our material patents relating to Virtue SAB as of December 31, 2024, their jurisdiction and expiration:

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FreeHold Devices

Our FreeHold Devices and additional minimally invasive surgery enabling devices are protected by an intellectual property portfolio which currently includes issued U.S. patents and issued patents and pending applications in countries outside of the United States covering methods and apparatus for intracorporeal retraction and removal of organs, internal adjustment of device and retraction, as well as design for safe device removal. Specifically, this portfolio includes 13 issued U.S. patents, 17 issued patents in countries outside the United States, and one pending applications. These issued patents, and any patents granted from such applications, will, or are expected to, expire between 2030 and 2037, without taking potential patent term extensions or adjustments into account. A further three published patent applications were filed to protect FreeHold devices.

Motus Devices

Our Pure-Vu® System and related highly innovative technologies rooted in systems and methods for cleaning body cavities with or without the use of an endoscope are protected by an intellectual property portfolio which includes 18 granted or allowed patents in the U.S., 19 patents in Asia (Japan, China and Hong Kong), and 10 patents in the EU, with patent protection until at least 2040. In addition, we have 11 pending patent applications in various regions of the world with a focus on the U.S., EU and Japan. We have registered trademarks for Motus GI and for the Pure-Vu® System in the U.S., EU and other international jurisdictions. We also have a pending trademark application in the U.S. to MICRO-PREP.

Government Regulation

Our AVIM therapy and CNT-HF product candidates and our FreeHold Devices, as well as the PerQSeal and Pure-Vu products, are regulated as medical devices. Our Virtue SAB product candidate is a proprietary drug/device combination product candidate in development for the treatment of artery disease.

In the United States, products composed of constituent parts that individually would be regulated under different regulatory pathways, and frequently by different centers at the FDA, are known as combination products. In the case of Virtue SAB, if marketed individually, the balloon angioplasty device would be regulated by FDA as a medical device while SirolimusEFR would be regulated by the FDA as a drug. However, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the “FDCA”), the FDA is charged with assigning a center with primary jurisdiction, or a lead center, for review of a combination product. The designation of a lead center generally obviates the need for separate approval of each component of a combination product. The determination of which center will be the lead center is based on the “primary mode of action” of the combination product. Thus, if the primary mode of action of a drug/device combination product is attributable to the device constituent, the FDA center responsible for pre-market review of the device product would have primary jurisdiction for the combination product. A combination product with a medical-device primary mode of action generally would be reviewed and approved or cleared pursuant to the medical device approval and clearance processes set forth under the FDCA. In reviewing the marketing application for such a product, however, FDA reviewers in the drug center could consult with their counterparts in the device center to ensure that the drug component of the combination product met applicable requirements regarding safety and effectiveness. In addition, under FDA regulations, drug/device combination products are subject to cGMP requirements applicable to both drugs and devices, including the Quality System Regulation (the “QSR”) applicable to medical devices.

In 2019, the FDA confirmed that Virtue SAB will be regulated as a combination product candidate, with the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health as the lead review center of a marketing application. We expect to seek FDA approval of each proposed indication of Virtue SAB through submission of a PMA, reviewed by the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and do not expect that the FDA will require a separate marketing authorization for each constituent component of Virtue SAB. We anticipate that our standalone SirolimusEFR product candidate for certain potential indications such as ophthalmic inflammatory conditions (uveitis) and chronic joint inflammation (osteoarthritis) will be regulated by the FDA as a drug.

Medical Device Regulation

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United States

Medical devices are subject to extensive and ongoing regulation by the FDA under the FDCA and its implementing regulations, as well as other federal and state regulatory bodies in the United States and comparable authorities in other countries under other statutes and regulations. The laws and regulations govern, among other things, product design and development, preclinical and clinical testing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, storage, recordkeeping and reporting, clearance or approval, marketing, distribution, promotion, import and export and post-marketing surveillance. Failure to comply with applicable requirements may subject a device and/or its manufacturer to a variety of administrative sanctions, such as issuance of warning letters, import detentions, civil monetary penalties and/or judicial sanctions, such as product seizures, injunctions and criminal prosecution.

FDA’s Approval Requirements

Unless an exemption applies, each medical device commercially distributed in the United States will require either FDA clearance of a 510(k) pre-market notification, or approval of a PMA application. The AVIM therapy and CNT-HF product candidates will be regulated as Class III medical devices and will require submission of a PMA supplement or a PMA. We anticipate that our Virtue SAB product candidate will be regulated as a drug/device combination product that will require submission of a PMA.

PMA Pathway

In the United States, medical devices are classified into one of three classes — Class I, Class II or Class III — depending on the degree of risk associated with each medical device and the extent of manufacturing and regulatory control needed to provide reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness. Class I devices are deemed to be low risk and are those for which safety and effectiveness can be assured by adherence to the FDA’s General Controls for medical devices, which include compliance with the applicable portions of the QSR, facility registration and product listing, reporting of adverse medical events and truthful and non-misleading advertising and promotion. Most Class I devices are classified as exempt from pre-market notification requirements and therefore may be commercially distributed without obtaining prior authorization from the FDA. Class II devices are subject to the FDA’s General Controls and special controls intended to provide reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of the device. Special controls can include performance standards, post-market surveillance, patient registries and guidance documents. Manufacturers of most Class II devices are required to submit to the FDA a pre-market notification under Section 510(k) of the FDCA demonstrating that the device to be marketed is as safe and effective, that is, substantially equivalent, to a legally marketed device and requesting permission to commercially distribute the device.

Pursuant to the Medical Device User Fee and Amendments to the FDA Reauthorization Act (MDUFA V), unless a specific exemption applies, 510(k) premarket notification submissions require payment of user fees. Devices deemed by the FDA to pose the greatest risk, such as life-sustaining, life-supporting or implantable devices, devices that utilize new technology, or devices deemed not substantially equivalent to a previously cleared 510(k) device, are placed in Class III, generally requiring approval of a PMA application.

Class III devices such as the AVIM therapy and CNT-HF product candidates require PMA approval before they can be marketed, although some pre-amendment Class III devices for which FDA has not yet required a PMA are cleared through the 510(k) process. The PMA application process is much more demanding than the 510(k) clearance process. A PMA application must be supported by extensive data, including but not limited to technical, preclinical, clinical studies, manufacturing and labeling, to demonstrate to the FDA’s satisfaction reasonable evidence of safety and effectiveness of the device. The PMA application must also contain a full description of the device and its components, a full description of the methods, facilities and controls used for manufacturing and proposed labeling. PMA applications (and supplemental PMA applications) are subject to substantially higher user fees under MDUFA V than are 510(k) premarket notifications.

After a PMA application is submitted, the FDA has 45 days to determine whether the application is sufficiently complete to permit a substantive review and thus whether the FDA will file the application for review. The FDA then has 180 days under the FDCA to review a filed PMA application, although the review of an application generally occurs over a significantly longer period of time and can take up to several years. During this review period, the FDA may request additional information or clarification of the information already provided.

Also, an advisory panel of experts from outside the FDA may be convened to review and evaluate the application and provide recommendations to the FDA as to the approvability of the device. Although the FDA is not bound by the advisory panel’s decision, the panel’s recommendations are important to the FDA’s overall decision-making process. In addition, the FDA may conduct a preapproval inspection of the manufacturing facility to ensure compliance with the QSR. The agency also may inspect one or more clinical sites to assure compliance with FDA’s regulations.

Upon completion of the PMA review, the FDA may: (i) approve the PMA which authorizes commercial marketing with specific prescribing information for one or more indications, which can be more limited than those originally sought; (ii) issue an approvable letter which indicates the FDA’s belief that the PMA is approvable and states what additional information the FDA requires, or the post-approval commitments that must be agreed to prior to approval; (iii) issue a “not approvable” letter which outlines steps required for approval, but which are typically more onerous than those in an approvable letter, and may require additional clinical studies that are often expensive and time consuming and can delay approval for months or even years; or (iv) deny the application. If the FDA issues an approvable or not approvable letter, the applicant has 180 days to respond, after which the FDA’s review clock is reset.

The FDA will generally approve the new device for commercial distribution if it determines that the data and information in the PMA constitute valid scientific evidence and that there is reasonable assurance that the device is safe and effective for its intended use(s). The FDA may approve a PMA with post-approval conditions intended to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the device, including, among other things, restrictions on labeling, promotion, sale and distribution, and collection of long-term follow-up data from patients in the clinical study that supported PMA approval or requirements to conduct additional clinical studies post-approval. The FDA may condition PMA approval on some form of post-market surveillance when deemed necessary to protect the public’s health or to provide additional safety and efficacy data for the device in a larger population or for a longer period of use. In such cases, the manufacturer might be required to follow certain patient groups for a number of years and to make periodic reports to the FDA on the clinical status of those patients. Failure to comply with the conditions of approval can result in material adverse enforcement action, including withdrawal of the approval.

Certain changes to an approved device, such as changes in manufacturing facilities, methods, or quality control procedures, or changes in the design performance specifications, which affect the safety or effectiveness of the device, require submission of a PMA supplement. PMA supplements often require submission of the same type of information as a PMA, except that the supplement is limited to information needed to support any changes from the device covered by the original PMA and may not require as extensive clinical data or the convening of an advisory panel. Certain other changes to an approved device require the submission of a new PMA, such as when the design change causes a different intended use, mode of operation, and technical basis of operation, or when the design change is so significant that a new generation of the device will be developed, and the data that were submitted with the original PMA are not applicable for the change in demonstrating a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness.

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Clinical Studies

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Clinical studies are almost always required to support pre-market approval and are sometimes required for 510(k) clearance. All clinical investigations of investigational devices designed to determine safety and effectiveness must be conducted in accordance with the FDA’s IDE regulations, which govern investigational device labeling, prohibit promotion of the investigational device, and specify an array of recordkeeping, reporting and monitoring responsibilities of study sponsors and study investigators. If the device presents a “significant risk” to human health, as defined by the FDA, the FDA requires the device sponsor to submit an IDE application to the FDA, which must become effective prior to commencing human clinical studies. A significant risk device is one that presents a potential for serious risk to the health, safety or welfare of a patient and either is implanted, used in supporting or sustaining human life, substantially important in diagnosing, curing, mitigating or treating disease or otherwise preventing impairment of human health, or otherwise presents a potential for serious risk to a subject. An IDE application must be supported by appropriate data, such as animal and laboratory test results, showing that it is safe to test the device in humans and that the testing protocol is scientifically sound. The IDE will automatically become effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA unless the FDA notifies the company that the investigation may not begin. If the FDA determines that there are deficiencies or other concerns with an IDE for which it requires modification, the FDA may permit a clinical study to still proceed under a conditional approval. Acceptance of an IDE for review does not guarantee that the FDA will allow the IDE to become effective and, if it does become effective, the FDA may or may not determine that the data derived from the trials support the safety and effectiveness of the device or warrant the continuation of clinical studies.

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Regardless of the degree of risk presented by the medical device, clinical studies must be approved by, and conducted under the oversight of, an IRB, for each clinical study site. An IRB is an appropriately constituted group that has been formally designated to review and monitor medical research involving subjects and which has the authority to approve, require modifications in, or disapprove research to protect the rights, safety and welfare of human research subjects. If an IDE application is approved by the FDA and one or more IRBs, human clinical studies may begin at a specific number of investigational sites with a specific number of patients, as approved by the FDA. If the evaluation of the device presents a non-significant risk to the patient, a sponsor may begin the clinical study after obtaining approval for the study by one or more IRBs without separate approval from the FDA. However, the clinical study must still be conducted in compliance with abbreviated IDE and human subject protection requirements, such as monitoring the investigation, ensuring that the investigators obtain informed consent, and labeling and recordkeeping requirements. During a study, the sponsor is required to comply with the applicable FDA requirements, including, for example, trial monitoring, selecting clinical investigators and providing them with the investigational plan, ensuring IRB review, adverse event reporting, recordkeeping, and prohibitions on the promotion of investigational devices or on making safety or effectiveness claims for them. The clinical investigators in the clinical study are also subject to FDA regulations and must obtain patient informed consent, rigorously follow the investigational plan and study protocol, control the disposition of the investigational device, and comply with all reporting and recordkeeping requirements. Additionally, after a trial begins, the sponsor, the FDA or the IRB could suspend or terminate a clinical study at any time for various reasons, including a belief that the risks to study subjects outweigh the anticipated benefits, or failures to follow applicable regulations.

Sponsors of certain clinical studies of medical devices are required to register their studies with clinicaltrials.gov, a public database of clinical study information. Information related to the device, patient population, phase of investigation, study sites and investigators and other aspects of the clinical study is made public as part of the registration.

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Breakthrough Devices Program

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Following passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, the FDA implemented the Breakthrough Devices Program, which is a voluntary program offered to manufacturers of certain medical devices and device-led combination products that may provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions. The goal of the program is to provide patients and healthcare providers with more timely access to qualifying devices by expediting their development, assessment and review, while preserving the statutory standards for PMA approval, 510(k) clearance and de novo classification. The program is available to medical devices that meet certain eligibility criteria, including that the device provides more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions, and that the device meets one of the following criteria: (i) the device represents a breakthrough technology, (ii) no approved or cleared alternatives exist, (iii) the device offers significant advantages over existing approved or cleared alternatives, or (iv) the availability of the device is in the best interest of patients. Breakthrough Device designation provides certain benefits to device developers, including more interactive and timely communications with FDA staff, use of post-market data collection, when scientifically appropriate, to facilitate expedited and efficient development and review of the device, opportunities for efficient and flexible clinical study design, and prioritized review of premarket submissions.

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Ongoing Regulation by the FDA

Even after a device receives clearance or approval and is placed on the market, numerous regulatory requirements apply. These include:

Manufacturing of medical devices is required to comply with the applicable portions of the QSR, which cover the methods and the facilities, controls for the design, manufacture, testing, production, processes, controls, quality assurance, labeling, packaging, distribution, installation, and servicing of finished devices intended for human use. The QSR also requires, among other things, maintenance of a device master file, device history file, and complaint files. FDA has issued a final rule amending the QSR that incorporates by reference requirements of the international standard specific for medical device quality management systems set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 13485:2016. FDA will begin enforcing this final rule, or the Quality Management System Regulation (“QMSR”) upon the effective date, February 2, 2026. Our facilities, records, and manufacturing processes, as well as those of our contract manufacturers, are subject to periodic scheduled or unscheduled inspections by the FDA. Our or our contract manufacturers’ failure to maintain compliance with the QSR, the QMSR or other applicable regulatory requirements could result in the shut-down of, or restrictions on, its manufacturing operations and the recall or seizure of its products. The discovery of previously unknown problems with any marketed products, including unanticipated adverse events or adverse events of increasing severity or frequency, whether resulting from the use of the device within the scope of its clearance or off-label by a physician in the practice of medicine, could result in restrictions on the device, including the removal of the product from the market or voluntary or mandatory device recalls.

The FDA has broad regulatory compliance and enforcement powers. If the FDA determines that a manufacturer has failed to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, it can take a variety of compliance or enforcement actions, which may result in any of the following sanctions:

European Union

We believe our Virtue SAB, AVIM therapy and CNT-HF product candidates as well as our FreeHold Devices would be regulated in the EU as medical devices.

The EU has adopted specific directives and regulations regulating the design, manufacture, clinical investigation, conformity assessment, labeling and adverse event reporting for medical devices (including active implantable medical devices).

Until May 25, 2021, medical devices (including active implantable medical devices) were regulated by Council Directive 93/42/EEC and Council Directive 90/385/EEC (the “EU Medical Devices Directives”), which have been repealed and replaced by Medical Devices Regulation (EU) No 2017/745 (the “EU Medical Devices Regulation”). Our current certificates have been granted under the EU Medical Devices Directives whose regimes are described below. However, as of May 26, 2021, some of the EU Medical Devices Regulation requirements apply in place of the corresponding requirements of the EU Medical Devices Directives with regard to registration of economic operators and of devices, post-market surveillance and vigilance requirements. If we want to market our medical devices in the EU, it will notably require that our devices be certified under the new regime set forth in the EU Medical Devices Regulation.

Medical Devices Directives

Under the EU Medical Devices Directives, all medical devices (including active implantable medical devices) placed on the market in the EU must meet the relevant essential requirements laid down in Annex I to the EU Medical Devices Directives, including the requirement that a medical device must be designed and manufactured in such a way that it will not compromise the clinical condition or safety of patients, or the safety and health of users and others. In addition, the device must achieve the performance intended by the manufacturer and be designed, manufactured, and packaged in a suitable manner. The European Commission has adopted various standards applicable to medical devices. These include standards governing common requirements, such as sterilization and safety of medical electrical equipment and product standards for certain types of medical devices. There are also harmonized standards relating to design and manufacture. While not mandatory, compliance with these standards is viewed as the easiest way to satisfy the essential requirements as a practical matter as it creates a rebuttable presumption that the device satisfies that essential requirement.

To demonstrate compliance with the essential requirements laid down in Annex I to the EU Medical Devices Directives, medical device manufacturers must undergo a conformity assessment procedure, which varies according to the type of medical device and its (risk) classification. As a general rule, demonstration of conformity of medical devices and their manufacturers with the essential requirements must be based, among other things, on the evaluation of clinical data supporting the safety and performance of the products during normal conditions of use. Specifically, a manufacturer must demonstrate that the device achieves its intended performance during normal conditions of use, that the known and foreseeable risks, and any adverse events, are minimized and acceptable when weighed against the benefits of its intended performance, and that any claims made about the performance and safety of the device are supported by suitable evidence. Except for low-risk medical devices (Class I non-sterile, non-measuring devices), where the manufacturer can self-assess the conformity of its products with the essential requirements (except for any parts which relate to sterility or metrology), a conformity assessment procedure requires the intervention of a notified body. Notified bodies are independent organizations designated by EU member states to assess the conformity of devices before being placed on the market. A notified body would typically audit and examine a product’s technical dossiers and the manufacturers’ quality system (the notified body must presume that quality systems which implement the relevant harmonized standards — which is ISO 13485:2016 for Medical Devices Quality Management Systems — conform to these requirements). If satisfied that the relevant product conforms to the relevant essential requirements, the notified body issues a certificate of conformity, which the manufacturer uses as a basis for its own declaration of conformity. The manufacturer may then apply the CE mark to the device, which allows the device to be placed on the market throughout the EU.

Throughout the term of the certificate of conformity, the manufacturer will be subject to periodic surveillance audits to verify continued compliance with the applicable requirements. In particular, there will be a new audit by the notified body before it will renew the relevant certificate(s).

Medical Devices Regulation

The regulatory landscape related to medical devices in the EU recently evolved. On April 5, 2017, the EU Medical Devices Regulation was adopted with the aim of ensuring better protection of public health and patient safety. The EU Medical Devices Regulation establishes a uniform, transparent, predictable and sustainable regulatory framework across the EU for medical devices and ensure a high level of safety and health while supporting innovation. Unlike the EU Medical Devices Directives, the EU Medical Devices Regulation is directly applicable in EU member states without the need for member states to implement into national law.

This aims at increasing harmonization across the EU.

The EU Medical Devices Regulation became effective on May 26, 2021. The new regulation, among other things:

Devices lawfully placed on the market pursuant to the EU Medical Devices Directives prior to May 26, 2021 may generally continue to be made available on the market or put into service until May 26, 2025, provided that the requirements of the transitional provisions are fulfilled. In particular, the certificate in question must still be valid. However, even in this case, manufacturers must comply with a number of new or reinforced requirements set forth in the EU Medical Devices Regulation, in particular the obligations described below. The EU Medical Devices Regulation requires that before placing a device, other than a custom-made device, on the market, manufacturers (as well as other economic operators such as authorized representatives and importers) must register by submitting identification information to the electronic system (Eudamed), unless they have already registered. The information to be submitted by manufacturers (and authorized representatives) also includes the name, address and contact details of the person or persons responsible for regulatory compliance. The new regulation also requires that before placing a device, other than a custom-made device, on the market, manufacturers must assign a unique identifier to the device and provide it along with other core data to the unique device identifier (“UDI”) database. These new requirements aim at ensuring better identification and traceability of the devices. Each device — and as applicable, each package — will have a UDI composed of two parts: a device identifier specific to a device, and a production identifier to identify the unit producing the device. Manufacturers are also notably responsible for entering the necessary data on Eudamed, which includes the UDI database, and for keeping it up to date. The obligations for registration in Eudamed will become applicable at a later date (as Eudamed is not yet fully functional). Until Eudamed is fully functional, the corresponding provisions of the EU Medical Devices Directive continue to apply for the purpose of meeting the obligations laid down in the provisions regarding exchange of information, including, and in particular, information regarding registration of devices and economic operators.

All manufacturers placing medical devices on the market in the EU must comply with the EU medical device vigilance system which has been reinforced by the EU Medical Devices Regulation. Under this system, serious incidents and Field Safety Corrective Actions (“FSCAs”) must be reported to the relevant authorities of the EU member states. These reports will have to be submitted through Eudamed — once functional — and aim to ensure that, in addition to reporting to the relevant authorities of the EU member states, other actors such as the economic operators in the supply chain will also be informed. Until Eudamed is fully functional, the corresponding provisions of the EU Medical Devices Directives continue to apply. A serious incident is defined as any malfunction or deterioration in the characteristics or performance of a device made available on the market, including use-error due to ergonomic features, as well as any inadequacy in the information supplied by the manufacturer and any undesirable side-effect, which, directly or indirectly, might have led or might lead to the death of a patient or user or of other persons or to a temporary or permanent serious deterioration of a patient’s, user’s or other person’s state of health or a serious public health threat. Manufacturers are required to take FSCAs defined as any corrective action for technical or medical reasons to prevent or reduce a risk of a serious incident associated with the use of a medical device that is made available on the market. An FSCA may include the recall, modification, exchange, destruction or retrofitting of the device. FSCAs must be communicated by the manufacturer or its legal representative to its customers and/or to the end users of the device through Field Safety Notices.

For similar serious incidents that occur with the same device or device type and for which the root cause has been identified or a FSCA implemented or where the incidents are common and well documented, manufacturers may provide periodic summary reports instead of individual serious incident reports.

The advertising and promotion of medical devices is subject to some general principles set forth in EU legislation. According to the EU Medical Devices Regulation, only devices that are CE-marked may be marketed and advertised in the EU in accordance with their intended purpose. Directive 2006/114/EC concerning misleading and comparative advertising and Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices, while not specific to the advertising of medical devices, also apply to the advertising thereof and contain general rules, for example, requiring that advertisements are evidenced, balanced and not misleading. Specific requirements are defined at a national level. EU member states’ laws related to the advertising and promotion of medical devices, which vary between jurisdictions, may limit or restrict the advertising and promotion of products to the general public and may impose limitations on promotional activities with healthcare professionals.

Many EU member states have adopted specific anti-gift statutes that further limit commercial practices for medical devices, in particular vis-à-vis healthcare professionals and organizations. Additionally, there has been a recent trend of increased regulation of payments and transfers of value provided to healthcare professionals or entities and many EU member states have adopted national “Sunshine Acts” which impose reporting and transparency requirements (often on an annual basis), similar to the requirements in the United States, on medical device manufacturers. Certain countries also mandate implementation of commercial compliance programs.

The aforementioned EU rules are generally applicable in the European Economic Area (the “EEA”), which consists of the 27 EU Member States plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom (“UK”), the medical devices market is regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which performs market surveillance of medical devices on the UK market. Devices are regulated under the Medical Devices Regulations 2002, which gave effect in UK law to the following EU directives: Directive 90/385/EEC on active implantable medical device; Directive 93/42/EEC on medical devices; and Directive 98/79/EC on in vitro diagnostic medical devices. The UK Conformity Assessed (“UKCA”) marking is a UK product marking used for medical devices being placed on the Great Britain market. It is not recognized in the EU, so these products require a CE marking as well. CE marketed devices will be accepted on the Great Britain market until June 30, 2023. From July 1, 2023, devices placed on the Great Britain market will need to conform to UKCA marketing requirements.

We may need to support clinical and/or regulatory requirements in the UK for its AVIM therapy product candidate, and potentially others.

Other Regions

Most major markets have different levels of regulatory requirements for medical devices. Modifications to the approved or certified products may require a new regulatory submission in all major markets. The regulatory requirements, and the review time, vary significantly from country to country. Products can also be marketed in other countries that have minimal requirements for medical devices.

Drug Regulation

United States

In the United States, our SirolimusEFR product candidate is subject to extensive regulation by the FDA, which regulates drugs under the FDCA and its implementing regulations, and other federal, state, and local regulatory authorities. The process of obtaining regulatory approvals and certifications and the subsequent compliance with appropriate federal, state, local and foreign statutes and regulations requires the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. Failure to comply with the applicable U.S. requirements at any time during the product development process, approval process or after approval, may subject an applicant to a variety of administrative or judicial sanctions, such as the FDA’s refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, imposition of a clinical hold, issuance of warning or untitled letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of government contracts, restitution, disgorgement or civil or criminal penalties.

The process required by the FDA before a drug may be marketed in the United States generally involves the following:

We have performed CMC testing in support of our IDE approval for the combination product Virtue SAB that includes populating a DMF. We intend to follow up post-IDE approval for the Virtue SAB with exploring additional pre-clinical work to support additional indications. Depending on the indication, we may be able to leverage some of the biocompatibility and CMC data in the DMF, while providing additional data depending on the indication selected.

Preclinical Studies

Preclinical studies include laboratory evaluation of product chemistry, toxicity and formulation, as well as animal studies to assess potential safety and efficacy. An IND sponsor must submit the results of the preclinical tests, together with manufacturing information, analytical data and any available clinical data or literature, among other things, to the FDA as part of an IND. Some preclinical testing may continue even after the IND is submitted. An IND automatically becomes effective and a clinical study proposed in the IND may begin 30 days after the FDA receives the IND, unless before that time the FDA raises concerns or questions related to one or more proposed clinical studies and places the clinical study on a clinical hold. In such a case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding concerns before the clinical study can begin. As a result, submission of an IND may not result in the FDA allowing clinical studies to commence.

We believe that additional preclinical studies will be necessary for evaluating SirolimusEFR in new indications.

Clinical Studies

Clinical studies involve the administration of the investigational new drug to human subjects under the supervision of qualified investigators in accordance with GCP and human subject protection requirements, which include the requirement that all research subjects provide their informed consent in writing for their participation in any clinical study. Clinical studies are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the trial, the parameters to be used in monitoring safety, and the effectiveness criteria to be evaluated. A protocol for each clinical study and any subsequent protocol amendments must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. An IRB at each institution participating in the clinical study must review and approve the plan for any clinical study before it commences at that institution, and the IRB must continue to oversee the clinical study while it is being conducted. Some trials also include oversight by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the clinical study sponsor, known as a Data Safety Monitoring Board, which provides authorization for whether or not a study may move forward at designated check points based on access to certain data from the study and may halt the clinical study based on prespecified criteria, for example, if it determines that there is an unacceptable safety risk for subjects or other grounds, such as no demonstration of efficacy.

Information about certain clinical studies must be submitted within specific timeframes to the National Institutes of Health for public dissemination on their www.clinicaltrials.gov website.

Human clinical studies are typically conducted in three or four sequential phases, which may overlap or be combined:

Progress reports detailing the results of the clinical studies, among other information, must be submitted at least annually to the FDA, and more frequently if serious adverse events occur. Furthermore, the FDA or the sponsor may suspend or terminate a clinical study at any time on various grounds, including a finding that the research subjects are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk or the failure to meet the trial’s objectives. Similarly, an IRB can suspend or terminate approval of a clinical study at its institution if the clinical study is not being conducted in accordance with the IRB’s requirements or if the drug has been associated with unexpected serious harm to patients.

Concurrent with clinical studies, companies usually complete additional animal studies and must also develop additional information about the chemistry and physical characteristics of the product and finalize a process for manufacturing the product in commercial quantities in accordance with cGMP requirements. The manufacturing process must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of the product candidate and, among other things, the manufacturer must develop methods for testing the identity, strength, quality and purity of the final product. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that the product candidate does not undergo unacceptable deterioration over its shelf life.

We believe that additional clinical studies will be necessary for evaluating SirolimusEFR in new indications.

Marketing Approval

Assuming successful completion of the required clinical testing in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements, the results of the preclinical and clinical studies, together with detailed information relating to the product’s chemistry, manufacture, controls and proposed labeling, among other things, are submitted to the FDA as part of an NDA requesting approval to market the product for one or more indications. In most cases, the submission of an NDA is subject to a substantial application user fee. Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act guidelines that are currently in effect, the FDA has a goal of 10 months to review and act on an NDA designed for standard review and six months to review and act on an NDA designed for priority review, measured from the “filing” date for an NDA for a new molecular entity (“NME”) or from the receipt date for an NDA for a non-NME product. Measuring from the “filing” date typically adds approximately two months to the timeline for review and decision, because the FDA has sixty days from receipt to make a “filing” decision, as described below.

In addition, under the Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2003 as amended and reauthorized, certain NDAs or supplements to an NDA must contain data that are adequate to assess the safety and effectiveness of the drug for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations, and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the product is safe and effective.

The FDA may, on its own initiative or at the request of the applicant, grant deferrals for submission of some or all pediatric data until after approval of the product for use in adults, or full or partial waivers from the pediatric data requirements as relevant.

Under certain circumstances, the FDA also may require submission of a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (“REMS”) plan to ensure that the benefits of the drug outweigh its risks. The REMS plan could include medication guides, physician communication plans, assessment plans, and/or elements to assure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries, or other risk minimization tools.

The FDA conducts a preliminary review of all NDAs within the first 60 days after submission, before accepting them for filing, to determine whether they are sufficiently complete to permit substantive review. The FDA may request additional information rather than accept an NDA for filing. In this event, the application must be resubmitted with the additional information. The resubmitted application is also subject to review before the FDA accepts it for filing. Once the submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth substantive review. The FDA reviews an NDA to determine, among other things, whether the drug is safe and effective and whether the facility in which it is manufactured, processed, packaged or held meets standards designed to assure the product’s continued safety, quality and purity.

The FDA may refer an application to an advisory committee. An advisory committee is a panel of independent experts, including clinicians and other scientific experts, that reviews, evaluates and provides a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions. The FDA is not bound by the recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations carefully when making decisions.

Before approving an NDA, the FDA typically will inspect the facility or facilities where the product is manufactured. The FDA will not approve an application unless it determines that the manufacturing processes and facilities are in compliance with cGMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. Additionally, before approving an NDA, the FDA may inspect one or more clinical study sites to assure compliance with GCP requirements.

The FDA generally accepts data from foreign clinical studies in support of an NDA if the trials were conducted under an IND. If a foreign clinical study is not conducted under an IND, the FDA nevertheless may accept the data in support of an NDA if the study was conducted in accordance with GCP requirements and the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection, if deemed necessary. The FDA may accept foreign clinical data as the sole clinical basis for marketing approval if (1) the foreign data are demonstrated to be applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice, (2) the studies were performed by clinical investigators with recognized competence, and (3) the data may be considered valid without the need for an on-site inspection or, if the FDA considers the inspection to be necessary, the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection or other appropriate means.

After evaluating the NDA and all related information, including the advisory committee recommendation, if any, and inspection reports regarding the manufacturing facilities and clinical study sites, if any, the FDA may issue an approval letter, or, in some cases, a Complete Response Letter. A Complete Response Letter indicates that the review cycle of the application is complete, and the application will not be approved in its present form. A Complete Response Letter contains a statement of all deficiencies identified in the NDA and the specific conditions that must be met to secure final approval of the NDA and may require additional clinical testing, preclinical testing, manufacturing or formulation modifications or other changes in order for the FDA to reconsider the application. Even with submission of this additional information, the FDA ultimately may decide that a resubmitted application does not satisfy the regulatory criteria for approval. If and when those conditions have been met to the FDA’s satisfaction, the FDA will typically issue an approval letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug with specific prescribing information for specific indications.

Even if the FDA approves a product, it may limit the approved indications or other conditions of use for use of the product, require that contraindications, warnings or precautions be included in the product labeling, require that post-approval studies, including Phase 4 clinical studies, be conducted to further assess a drug’s safety after approval, require testing and surveillance programs to monitor the product after commercialization, or impose other conditions, including distribution and use restrictions or other risk management mechanisms under a REMS, which can materially affect the potential market and profitability of the product. The FDA may take steps to prevent or limit further marketing of a product based on the results of post-marketing studies or surveillance programs. After approval, some types of changes to the approved product, such as adding new indications, manufacturing changes, and additional labeling claims, may be subject to further testing requirements and FDA review and approval.

SirolimusEFR is the drug product component of our combination product Virtue SAB. We have yet to receive IDE approval for Virtue SAB.

The Hatch-Waxman Amendments

Our current regulatory strategy is to pursue development of its standalone SirolimusEFR product candidate for potential indications such as ophthalmic inflammatory conditions (uveitis) and chronic joint inflammation (osteoarthritis) as a Section 505(b)(2) NDA. As an alternative path to FDA approval for modifications to formulations or uses of drugs previously approved by the FDA, an applicant may submit an NDA under Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA. Section 505(b)(2) was enacted as part of the Hatch-Waxman Amendments. A Section 505(b)(2) NDA is an application that contains full reports of investigations of safety and effectiveness, but where at least some of the information required for approval comes from studies not conducted by, or for, the applicant and for which the applicant has not obtained a right of reference or use from the person by or for whom the investigations were conducted. This type of application permits reliance for such approvals on literature or on the FDA’s previous findings of safety, effectiveness or both for an approved drug product. As such, under Section 505(b)(2), the FDA may rely, for approval of an NDA, on data not developed by or for the applicant and for which the applicant does not contain a right of reference. If the 505(b)(2) applicant can establish that reliance on FDA’s previous findings of safety and effectiveness is scientifically appropriate, it may eliminate the need to conduct certain preclinical or clinical studies of the product candidate. The FDA may also require companies to perform additional bridging studies or measurements, including clinical studies, to support the change from the approved branded reference drug. The FDA may then approve the new product candidate for all, or some, of the labeled indications and conditions of use for which the branded reference drug has been approved, as well as for any new indications and conditions of use sought by the 505(b)(2) applicant.

Orange Book Listing

In seeking approval for a drug through an NDA, including a 505(b)(2) NDA, applicants are required to list with the FDA certain patents whose claims cover the applicant’s product. Upon approval of an NDA, each of the patents listed in the application for the drug is then published in the FDA’s Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, known as the Orange Book. Any applicant who files an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) seeking approval of a generic equivalent version of a drug listed in the Orange Book or a 505(b)(2) NDA referencing a drug listed in the Orange Book must certify, for each patent listed in the Orange Book for the referenced drug, to the FDA that (1) no patent information on the drug product that is the subject of the application has been submitted to the FDA, (2) such patent has expired, (3) the date on which such patent expires or (4) such patent is invalid or will not be infringed upon by the manufacture, use or sale of the drug product for which the application is submitted. The fourth certification described above is known as a paragraph IV certification. A notice of the paragraph IV certification must be provided to each owner of the patent that is the subject of the certification and to the holder of the approved NDA to which the ANDA or 505(b)(2) application refers. The applicant may also elect to submit a “section viii” statement certifying that its proposed label does not contain (or carves out) any language regarding the patented method-of-use rather than certify to a listed method-of-use patent. This section viii statement does not require notice to the patent holder or NDA owner. There might also be no relevant patent certification.

If the reference NDA holder and patent owners assert a patent challenge directed to one of the Orange Book listed patents within 45 days of the receipt of the paragraph IV certification notice, the FDA is prohibited from approving the application until the earlier of 30 months from the receipt of the paragraph IV certification expiration of the patent, settlement of the lawsuit, or a decision in the infringement case that is favorable to the applicant. Even if the 45 days expire, a patent infringement lawsuit can be brought and could delay market entry, but it would not extend the FDA-related 30-month stay of approval.

The ANDA or 505(b)(2) application also will not be approved until any applicable non-patent exclusivity listed in the Orange Book for the branded reference drug has expired. Specifically, the holder of the NDA for the listed drug may be entitled to a period of non-patent exclusivity, during which the FDA cannot approve an ANDA or 505(b)(2) application that relies on the listed drug. For example, a pharmaceutical manufacturer may obtain five years of non-patent exclusivity upon NDA approval of a NCE, which is a drug that contains an active moiety that has not been approved by FDA in any other NDA. An “active moiety” is defined as the molecule or ion responsible for the drug substance’s physiological or pharmacologic action. During the five-year NCE exclusivity period, the FDA cannot accept for filing and cannot approve any ANDA seeking approval of a generic version of that drug or any 505(b)(2) NDA for the same active moiety and that relies on the FDA’s findings regarding that drug, except that the FDA may accept an application for filing after four years (and may initiate a review of the application, but still may not approve it for five years) if the follow-on applicant makes a paragraph IV certification. This exclusivity period may be extended by an additional six months if certain requirements are met to qualify the product for pediatric exclusivity, including the receipt of a written request from the FDA that the NDA holder conduct certain pediatric studies, the submission of study reports from such studies to the FDA after receipt of the written request and satisfaction of the conditions specified in the written request.

In addition, a drug, including one approved under Section 505(b)(2), may also obtain a three-year period of market exclusivity for a particular condition of approval, or change to a marketed product, such as a new formulation for a previously approved product, if one or more new clinical studies (other than bioavailability or bioequivalence studies) was essential to the approval of the application and was conducted/ sponsored by the applicant. Should this occur, the FDA would be precluded from approving any ANDA or 505(b)(2) application that relies on the information supporting the approval of the drug, or the change to the drug for which the information was submitted and the exclusivity granted, until after that three-year exclusivity period has run. However, unlike for NCE exclusivity, the FDA can accept an application and begin the review process during the exclusivity period.

Post-Approval Requirements

Drugs manufactured or distributed pursuant to FDA approvals are subject to pervasive and continuing regulation by the FDA and other government authorities, including, among other things, requirements relating to recordkeeping, periodic reporting, product sampling and distribution, product tracking and tracing, advertising and promotion and reporting of adverse experiences with the product. After approval, most changes to the approved product, such as adding new indications, manufacturing changes or other labeling claims, are subject to prior FDA review and approval. There also are continuing annual program fee requirements for any marketed products.

The FDA may impose a number of post-approval requirements as a condition of approval of an NDA. For example, the FDA may require post-marketing testing, including Phase 4 clinical studies, and surveillance to further assess and monitor the product’s safety and effectiveness after commercialization.

In addition, drug manufacturers and other entities involved in the manufacture and distribution of approved drugs are required to register their establishments with the FDA and state authorities and are subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA and these state authorities for compliance with cGMP requirements. Changes to the manufacturing process are strictly regulated and often require prior FDA approval before being implemented. FDA regulations also require investigation and correction of any deviations from cGMP requirements and impose reporting and documentation requirements upon the sponsor and any third-party manufacturers that the sponsor may decide to use. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money, and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain cGMP compliance.

Once an approval is granted, the FDA may withdraw the approval if certain conditions are met, for example, if clinical or other experience, tests, or other scientific data show that such drug is unsafe for use. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a product, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in mandatory revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information; imposition of post-market studies or clinical studies to assess new safety risks; or imposition of distribution or other restrictions under a REMS program.

Other potential consequences include, among other things: