25 • we may be required to create a REMS plan, which could include a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients, a communication plan for healthcare providers and/or other elements to assure safe use; • we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients; and • our reputation may suffer. Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular product candidate, if approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations, and prospects. We may encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, and our clinical development activities could thereby be delayed or otherwise adversely affected. The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the trial until its conclusion. We may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including: • the size and nature of the patient population; • the patient eligibility criteria defined in the protocol, including certain highly-specific criteria related to stage of disease progression, which may limit the patient populations eligible for our clinical trials to a greater extent than competing clinical trials for the same indication that do not have such patient eligibility criteria; • the size of the study population required for analysis of the trial’s primary endpoints; • the proximity of patients to a trial site; • the effects of health epidemics, including the resulting shelter-in-place, travel or similar restrictions; • the design of the trial; • new safety events may cause physicians to decrease patient enrollment in our current or planned studies; • our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience; • competing clinical trials for similar therapies or targeting patient populations meeting our patient eligibility criteria; • clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages and side effects of the product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies and product candidates; • our ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; and • the risk that patients enrolled in clinical trials will not complete such trials, for any reason. Our inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials could result in significant delays or may require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. Enrollment delays in our clinical trials may result in increased development costs for our product candidates, delay or halt the development of and approval processes for our product candidates and jeopardize our ability to commence sales of and generate revenues from our product candidates, which may harm our business and results of operation. Our clinical trials may fail to demonstrate substantial evidence of the safety and efficacy or durability of our product candidates, which would prevent, delay or limit the scope of regulatory approval and commercialization. Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of any of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive preclinical studies and clinical trials that our product candidates are both safe and effective for use in each target indication. For those product candidates that are subject to regulation as biological drug products, we will need to demonstrate that they are safe, pure, and potent for use in their target indications. Each product candidate must demonstrate an adequate risk versus benefit profile in its intended patient population and for its intended use. This is especially true for anti-VEGF biologic agents, where Lucentis, Eylea and Avastin are established products with accepted safety profiles.