29 One of our strategies is to identify and pursue clinical development of product candidates based on our ABC Platform. Our ABC Platform may not produce a pipeline of viable product candidates, or our competitors may develop platform technologies that render our ABC Platform obsolete or less attractive. We face significant competition in an environment of rapid technological and scientific change, and there is a possibility that our competitors may retain their market share with existing drugs, or achieve regulatory approval before us or develop therapies that are safer, more advanced or more effective than ours, which may negatively impact our ability to successfully market or commercialize any product candidates we may develop and ultimately harm our financial condition. The development and commercialization of new drug products is highly competitive. We may face competition with respect to any product candidates that we seek to develop or commercialize in the future from major pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology companies worldwide. Potential competitors also include academic institutions, government agencies, and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection, and establish collaborative arrangements for research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization. There are a number of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are currently pursuing the development of products for the treatment of the retinal diseases for which we have product candidates. Several of our competitors have commercially approved products for the treatment of retinal diseases that we are pursuing or may pursue in the future, including Roche, Regeneron and Novartis for the treatment of wet AMD, DME, DR and RVO. These drugs are well established therapies and are widely accepted by physicians, patients and third-party payors, which may make it difficult to educate these parties on the benefits of switching to any product candidates developed by us. Companies that we are aware are developing and/or commercializing therapeutics in the retinal disease area include large companies with significant financial resources, such as Roche, Novartis, Bayer, Regeneron, AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Amgen, and Samsung Bioepis. In addition to competition from other companies targeting retinal indications, any products we may develop may also face competition from other types of therapies, such as gene-editing therapies and drug delivery devices. Roche’s product, Vabysmo (faricimab) received FDA approval for the treatment of wet AMD and DME in January 2022 and received FDA approval for RVO in October 2023. Vabysmo has gained rapid adoption since launch and garnered significant market share. Regeneron’s product, Eylea HD (high dose aflibercept) gained FDA approval for the treatment of wet AMD, DME and DR in August 2023. It has also become an important therapy in the marketplace due to Regeneron’s incumbent position in retinal diseases. Even if our product candidates present a compelling clinical profile, we may not be able to market our product candidates as effectively as our competitors. For example, entrenched franchises may seek to impede adoption of our product candidates through significant discounts or rebates. Many of our current or potential competitors, either alone or with their strategic partners, have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals, and marketing approved products than we do. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our product candidates. Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient, or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Furthermore, currently approved products could be discovered to have application for treatment of retinal disease indications, which could give such products significant regulatory and market timing advantages over any of our product candidates. Our competitors also may obtain FDA, EMA or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours. Additionally, products or technologies developed by our competitors may render our product candidates uneconomical or obsolete, and we may not be successful in marketing any product candidates we may develop against competitors. In addition, we could face litigation or other proceedings with respect to the scope, ownership, validity and/or enforceability of our patents relating to our competitors’ products and our competitors may allege that our products infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate their intellectual property. For more information regarding potential disputes concerning intellectual property, refer to section “Part I, Item 1A — Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.