56 • we, or our current or future licensors or collaborators, might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by the issued patent or pending patent application that we license or own now or in the future; • we, or our current or future licensors or collaborators, might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our or their inventions; • others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our owned or licensed intellectua t l property rights; • it is possible that our current or future pending owned or licensed patent applications will not lead to issued patents; • issued patents that we hold rights to may be held invalid or unenfor f ceable, including as a result of legal challenges by our competitors or other third parties; • our competitors or other third parties might conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our majo a r commercial markets; • we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable; • the patents of others may harm our business; and • we may choose not to file a patent in order to maintain certain trade secrets or know-how, and a third party may subs u equently file a patent covering such intellectua t l property. Should any of these events occur, they could have a material adverse effe f ct on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Risks Related to Our Operations We are high i ly depe e nden d t on our key e personnel, and if we are not successful f in attr t acting i ,g motivatin t g and retaining high i ly qualif l ie f d personnel, we may a not be ablel to successfu s lly implement our busine i ss stra t tegy e .y Developing and commercializing new medicines is a challenging exercise and requires diverse expertise in a variety of scientific f , clinical, manufactur t ing, commercial, financial, people and legal functions. Failure to adequately develop these functions will hurt our ability to compete effe f ctively. Our ability to compete in the highly competitive biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries depends upon our ability to attract, motivate and retain highly qualified managerial, scientific f and medical personnel. We are highly dependent on our management, particularly our Chief Executive Offi f cer, Dr. Victor Perlroth, and our scientific f and medical personnel. The loss of the services provided by any of our executive offi f cers, other key employees, and other scientific f and medical advisors, and our inability to find suitable replacements, could result in delays in the development of our product candidates and harm our business. We conduct our U.S. operations at our facilities in Palo Alto, Califor f nia, in a region that is headquarters to many other biopharmaceutical companies and many academic and research institutions. Competition for skilled personnel is intense and the turnover rate can be high, which may limit our ability to hire and retain highly qualifie f d personnel on acceptabl a e terms or at all. We expect that we may need to recrui r t talent from outside of our region and doing so may be costly and difficult. To induce valuable employees to remain at our company, in addition to salary and cash incentives, we have provided restricted stock and stock option grants, including early exercise stock options exercisabl a e for restricted stock that vest over time. The value to employees of these equity grants that vest over time may be significantly affe f cted by movements in our stock price that are beyond our control and may at any time be insufficient to counteract more lucrative offe f rs from other companies. Although we have employment agreements with our key employees, these employment agreements provide for at- will employment, which means that any of our employees could leave our employment at any time, with or without notice. We do not maintain “key man” insurance policies on the lives of all of these individuals or the lives of any of our other employees. If we are unabl a e to attract, incentivize and retain quality personnel on acceptabl a e terms, or at all, it may cause our business and operating results to suffer. We will i need to grow the size i and capabi a lit i ie t s of our organ r izatio t n, and we may a expe x rience diffi i culties in managi a ng i this growth. As of December 31, 2023, we had 111 employees. As our development plans and strategies develop, and as we continue operating as a public company, we must add a significant number of additional managerial, operational, financial and other personnel. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, including: