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Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of
Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition
and results of operations should be read
together with our unaudited
condensed consolidated financial statements and related
notes and other financial information appearing elsewhere
in this Quarterly
Report. We
intend for this discussion to provide you with information that
will assist you in understanding our unaudited condensed
consolidated financial statements, the changes in key items in those unaudited
condensed consolidated financial statements from
period to period and the primary factors that accounted for those changes.
Some of the information contained in this discussion and
analysis or set forth elsewhere in this Quarterly
Report, including information with respect to
our plans and strategy for our business
and related financing, includes forward
-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions.
See the section of this
Quarterly Report titled “Special Note Regarding
Forward-Looking Statements” for a discussion of
forward-looking statements. As a
result of many factors, including those factors set forth
in the “Risk Factors” section of this Quarterly Report, our actual results
could
differ materially from management’s
expectations and the results described in or implied by
the forward-looking statements contained
in the following discussion and analysis.
Overview
Vaxxinity
is engaged in the development and commercialization of rationally designed prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines to
combat
common chronic disorders and infectious diseases with large
global unmet medical needs. Vaccines
offer significant cost, convenience
and accessibility advantages over
other forms of treatment, but
have traditionally been unable to
effectively and safely combat
chronic
diseases. We believe our platform may be able
to do so, expanding
access to, and reducing
costs of, treatments across a
potentially broad
spectrum of illnesses. Our Vaxxine
Platform relies on a synthetic peptide
vaccine technology first developed by
UBI and subsequently
refined over the last
two decades. We
believe our vaccines have
the potential to combat
conditions that have not
yet been successfully
treated, or which have
been addressed with
monoclonal antibodies (“mAbs”)
which, while generally effective,
are far more costly
and
cumbersome
to
administer
than
vaccines,
and
thus
are
generally
less
accessible.
Our
pipeline
is
centered
around
common
chronic
diseases, pursuing validated
targets in neurology,
pain and cardiovascular indications.
We have
also leveraged our Vaxxine
Platform’s
applicability to infectious disease and are advancing next-generation
booster candidate for SARS-CoV-2.
We separated our business from UBI
through two transactions:
a spin-out from
UBI in 2014
of operations focused on
developing chronic
disease product candidates that resulted
in UNS, and a second spin-out
from UBI in 2020 of operations
focused on the development of
a COVID-19 vaccine that resulted in COVAXX.
On February 2, 2021, Vaxxinity
was incorporated for the purpose of reorganizing and
combining UNS and
COVAXX
and did so on
March 2, 2021 through
the Reorganization. The
Reorganization was determined
to be a
common control transaction,
so the
carrying values of
all contributed assets
and assumed liabilities
remained unchanged and
the financial
information for all
periods in this
section of the
financial statements presented
prior to the
Reorganization are presented on
a consolidated
basis. Unless the context requires
otherwise, in this section we
use the terms “Vaxxinity,” “we,” “us” and “our” to refer to
our operations
(including through UNS and COVAXX)
both prior to and after the Reorganization.
Since our spin-out transactions
from UBI, we have
focused on organizing
and staffing our business,
business planning, raising
capital,
developing our Vaxxine
Platform and pipeline candidates,
identifying and testing
potential product candidates
and conducting clinical
trials. We have also
developed a SARS CoV-2
antibody ELISA test, which received an EUA from the FDA in January 2021.
Our
chronic
disease
pipeline
consists
of
five
programs
from
early
to
late-stage
development.
These
include
two
primary
programs
focused on well-validated targets
of chronic disease: UB-313,
which targets CGRP to
prevent migraines; and
VXX-401, which targets
PCSK9 to lower
LDL cholesterol
and reduce
the risk of
cardiac events. We
consider these
to be potential
best-in-class based
on their
potential for enhanced convenience, increased durability, expanded accessibility and greater
cost-effectiveness as compared to biologics
and
other available
treatments. Moreover,
for both
of these
programs,
there
is a
known regulatory
pathway
to approval
and
either a
surrogate marker
or experimental provocation
that can facilitate
and accelerate development
decisions. We
began dosing subjects
in a
Phase 1 first-in-human trial of UB-313 in September 2022, and anticipate progressing VXX-401 into the clinic by the first half of 2023.
We
have three
programs that
comprise our
neurodegenerative disease
pipeline: UB-311,
our leading
neurology product
candidate, in
development for
Alzheimer’s Disease
(“AD”); UB-312,
in development
for Parkinson’s
Disease (“PD”)
and other
synucleinopathies;
and
an
anti-tau
product
candidate
which
has
the
potential
to
address
multiple
neurodegenerative
conditions,
including
AD.
These
programs have
the unique
potential to
not only
treat
neurodegenerative diseases
but also,
depending on
potential safety,
convenience
and
accessibility
advantages
of
our
vaccine
approach,
prevent
neurodegenerative
diseases.
Realizing
that
these
neurodegenerative
disease and disease prevention candidates will require significantly more time and
resources in connection with regulatory approval, we
are seeking strategic partnerships and/or dedicated investment in connection
with the further advancement of these programs.
We believe in our
Vaxxine
Platform’s capability to create candidates to
address a wide range of other chronic diseases, including those
that are
or could
potentially be
successfully treated
by mAbs,
which increasingly
dominate the
treatment paradigm
for many
chronic
diseases.