Significant Accounting Policies (Policies) |
12 Months Ended | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dec. 31, 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Accounting Policies [Abstract] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consolidation |
Consolidation
The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly owned subsidiaries. All significant intercompany transactions and accounts have been eliminated in consolidation. |
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| Use of Estimates |
Use of Estimates
The process of preparing financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”) requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from those estimates and changes in estimates may occur. The most significant estimates are related to stock-based compensation expense, the accrual of research, product development and clinical obligations, the recognition of revenue under the Investment Agreement (see Note 9) and the valuation of the CFF Warrant discussed in Note 13). |
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| Cash and Cash Equivalents |
Cash and Cash Equivalents
The Company considers only those investments which are highly liquid, readily convertible to cash, and that mature within three months from date of purchase to be cash equivalents. Marketable investments are those with original maturities in excess of three months. At December 31, 2019 and 2018, cash equivalents were comprised of money market funds. The Company had no marketable investments at December 31, 2019 and 2018.
Cash and cash equivalents consists of the following:
As of December 31, 2019, all of the Company’s cash and cash equivalents was held in the United States, except for approximately $466,000 of cash which was held principally in our subsidiary in the United Kingdom. As of December 31, 2018, all of the Company’s cash was held in the United States, except for approximately $702,000 of cash which was held primarily in our subsidiary in the United Kingdom. |
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| Financial Instruments |
Financial Instruments
The carrying amounts reported in the consolidated balance sheet for cash and cash equivalents, receivables, accounts payable and accrued expenses approximate their fair value based on the short-term nature of these instruments. The carrying values of the notes payable approximate their fair value due to the fact that they are at market terms. |
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| Property and Equipment |
Property and Equipment
The estimated life for the Company’s property and equipment is as follows: three years for computer hardware and software and three to five years for office furniture and equipment. The Company’s leasehold improvements and assets under capital lease are amortized over the shorter of their useful lives or the respective leases. See Note 5 for details of property and equipment and Note 6 for operating and capital lease commitments. |
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| Research and Development Expenses |
Research and Development Expenses
Costs incurred for research and development are expensed as incurred.
Nonrefundable advance payments for goods or services that have the characteristics that will be used or rendered for future research and development activities pursuant to executory contractual arrangements with third party research organizations are deferred and recognized as an expense as the related goods are delivered or the related services are performed. |
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| Accruals for Research and Development Expenses and Clinical Trials |
Accruals for Research and Development Expenses and Clinical Trials
As part of the process of preparing its financial statements, the Company is required to estimate its expenses resulting from its obligations under contracts with vendors, clinical research organizations and consultants and under clinical site agreements in connection with conducting clinical trials. The financial terms of these contracts are subject to negotiations, which vary from contract to contract and may result in payment terms that do not match the periods over which materials or services are provided under such contracts. The Company’s objective is to reflect the appropriate expenses in its financial statements by matching those expenses with the period in which services are performed and efforts are expended. The Company accounts for these expenses according to the timing of various aspects of the expenses. The Company determines the accrual estimates by taking into account discussion with applicable personnel and outside service providers as to the progress of clinical trials, or the services completed. During the course of a clinical trial, the Company adjusts its clinical expense recognition if actual results differ from its estimates. The Company makes estimates of its accrued expenses as of each balance sheet date based on the facts and circumstances known to it at that time. The Company’s clinical trial accruals are dependent upon the timely and accurate reporting of contract research organizations and other third-party vendors. Although the Company does not expect its estimates to be materially different from amounts actually incurred, its understanding of the status and timing of services performed relative to the actual status and timing of services performed may vary and may result in it reporting amounts that are too high or too low for any particular period. For the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, there were no material adjustments to the Company’s prior period estimates of accrued expenses for clinical trials. |
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| Leases |
Leases
The Company determines if an arrangement is a lease at inception. Operating leases are included in operating lease right-of-use (“ROU”) assets, other current liabilities and operating lease liabilities in the Company’s consolidated balance sheets.
ROU assets represent the Company’s right to use an underlying asset for the lease term and lease liabilities represent its obligation to make lease payments arising from the lease. ROU assets and liabilities are recognized at commencement date based on the present value of lease payments over the lease term. As the Company’s leases do not provide an implicit rate, the Company uses an incremental borrowing rate based on the information available at commencement date in determining the present value of lease payments. This is the rate the Company would have to pay if borrowing on a collateralized basis over a similar term to each lease. The ROU asset also includes any lease payments made and excludes lease incentives. Lease expense for lease payments is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term. |
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| Concentrations of Credit Risk |
Concentrations of Credit Risk
The Company has no significant off-balance-sheet concentration of credit risk such as foreign exchange contracts, option contracts or other hedging arrangements. The Company may from time to time have cash in banks in excess of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance limits. However, the Company believes the risk of loss is minimal as these banks are large financial institutions. |
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| Segment Information |
Segment Information
Operating segments are identified as components of an enterprise about which separate discrete financial information is available for evaluation by the chief operating decision maker, or decision-making group, in making decisions regarding resource allocation and assessing performance. To date, the Company has viewed its operations and manages its business as principally one operating segment, which is developing and commercializing therapeutics to treat rare life-threatening inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. As of December 31, 2019, all of the Company’s assets were located in the United States, except for approximately $466,000 of cash, $1,606,000 of prepaid expenses and other current assets, $23,000 of other assets, and $52,000 of property and equipment, net which were held outside of the United States, principally in our subsidiary in the United Kingdom. As of December 31, 2018, all of the Company’s assets were located in the United States, except for approximately $702,000 of cash, $1,183,000 of prepaid expenses and other current assets, $28,000 of other assets, and $54,000 of property and equipment, net which were held in our subsidiary in the United Kingdom. |
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| Income Taxes |
Income Taxes
For federal and state income taxes, deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized based upon temporary differences between the financial statement and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. Deferred income taxes are based upon prescribed rates and enacted laws applicable to periods in which differences are expected to reverse. A valuation allowance is recorded to reduce a net deferred tax benefit when it is not more likely than not that the tax benefit from the deferred tax assets will be realized. Accordingly, given the cumulative losses since inception, the Company has provided a valuation allowance equal to 100% of the deferred tax assets in order to eliminate the deferred tax assets amounts.
Tax positions taken or expected to be taken in the course of preparing the Company’s tax returns are required to be evaluated to determine whether the tax positions are “more-likely-than-not” of being sustained by the applicable tax authority. Tax positions not deemed to meet a more-likely-than-not threshold, as well as accrued interest and penalties, if any, would be recorded as a tax expense in the current year. There were no uncertain tax positions that require accrual or disclosure to the financial statements as of December 31, 2019 or 2018. |
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| Impairment of Long-lived Assets |
Impairment of Long-lived Assets
The Company continually monitors events and changes in circumstances that could indicate that carrying amounts of long-lived assets may not be recoverable. An impairment loss is recognized when expected undiscounted cash flows of an asset are less than an asset’s carrying value. Accordingly, when indicators of impairment are present, the Company evaluates the carrying value of such assets in relation to the operating performance and future undiscounted cash flows of the underlying assets. An impairment loss equal to the excess of the fair value of the asset over its carrying amount, is recorded when it is determined that the carrying value of the asset may not be recoverable. No impairment charges were recorded for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018. |
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| Stock-based Payments |
Stock-based Payments
The Company recognizes compensation costs resulting from the issuance of stock-based awards to employees, non-employees and directors as an expense in the statement of operations over the service period based on a measurement of fair value for each stock-based award. The fair value of each option grant to employees is estimated as of the date of grant using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model, net of estimated forfeitures. The fair value is amortized as compensation cost on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period of the awards, which is generally the vesting period. Prior to the Company’s adoption of ASU 2018-07, (see Recent Accounting Pronouncements section to follow), stock options granted to non-employee consultants were revalued at the end of each reporting period until vested using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model and the changes in their fair value were recorded as adjustments to expense over the related vesting period. |
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| Net Loss Per Common Share |
Net Loss Per Common Share
Basic and diluted net loss per share of the Company’s common stock has been computed by dividing net loss by the weighted average number of shares outstanding during the period. For years in which there is a net loss, options and warrants are anti-dilutive and therefore excluded from diluted loss per share calculations. The following table sets forth the computation of basic and diluted earnings per share for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018:
The impact of the following potentially dilutive securities outstanding as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 have been excluded from the computation of dilutive weighted average shares outstanding as the inclusion would be antidilutive.
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| Recent Accounting Pronouncements |
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
The Company considers applicability and impact of all Accounting Standard Updates (“ASUs”). ASUs not discussed below were assessed and determined to be either not applicable or are expected to have minimal impact on the Company’s balance sheets or statements of operations.
Accounting for Leases
In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), as amended (“ASU 2016-02”). Under ASU 2016-02, a lessee is required to recognize assets and liabilities for all leases with lease terms of more than 12 months. ASU 2016-02 requires both financing and operating types of leases to be recognized on the balance sheet. ASU 2016-02 is effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2018. ASU 2016-02 required a modified retrospective transition approach, which initially required application of the new guidance for all periods presented in the Company’s financial statements (“comparative method”). In July 2018, the FASB released ASU 2018-11, offering a second option which provides further relief in the transition to ASC 842. Companies are allowed to follow the cumulative-effect adjustment transition approach (“effective date method”), which releases companies from presenting comparative periods and related disclosures according to ASC 842. Instead, companies electing to utilize the effective date method will recognize a one-time adjustment to retained earnings on the transition date without the additional burden of presenting the comparative periods under the new guidance. The Company adopted ASU 2016-02 using the effective date method as of January 1, 2019 and recorded an operating lease liability of approximately $3.8 million, and an operating lease right-of-use asset of approximately $2.4 million, with no operations adjustment to the accumulated deficit (See Note 6).
Nonemployee Share-Based Payment Accounting
In June 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-07, Compensation-Stock Compensation (Topic 718), Improvements to Nonemployee Share-Based Payment Accounting (“ASU 2018-07”). ASU 2018-07 expands the scope of Topic 718 to include share-based payment transactions for acquiring goods and services from nonemployees. Under ASU 2018-07, consistent with the accounting requirement for employee share-based payment awards, nonemployee share-based payment awards within the scope of Topic 718 are to be measured at the grant-date fair value of the equity instruments that an entity is obligated to issue when the good has been delivered or the service has been rendered and any other conditions necessary to earn the right to benefit from the instruments have been satisfied. Equity-classified nonemployee share-based payment awards are to be measured at the grant date. The definition of the term grant date is amended to generally state the date at which a grantor and a grantee reach a mutual understanding of the key terms and conditions of a share-based payment award. ASU 2018-07 specifies that Topic 718 applies to all share-based payment transactions in which a grantor acquires goods or services to be used or consumed in its own operations by issuing share-based payment awards. ASU 2018-07 also clarifies that Topic 718 does not apply to share-based payments used to effectively provide (1) financing to the issuer or (2) awards granted in conjunction with selling goods or services to customers as part of a contract accounted for under ASC 606. ASU 2018-07 is effective for public business entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within that fiscal year. The Company’s adoption of ASU 2018-07 on January 1, 2019 had no impact on the Company’s financial statements and related disclosures.
Collaborative Arrangements
In November 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-08, Collaborative Arrangements (Topic 808): Clarifying the Interaction between Topic 808 and Topic 606 (“ASU 2018-08”). ASU 2018-08 clarifies the interaction between the accounting guidance for collaborative arrangements and revenue from contracts with customers. ASU 2018-08 is effective for public business entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, including interim periods within that fiscal year. Early adoption, including adoption in any interim period, is permitted. The Company is currently evaluating the timing of the adoption of ASU 2018-08 and the expected impact it could have on the Company’s financial statements and related disclosures.
Accounting for Income Taxes
In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU 2019-12, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes which is intended to simplify various aspects related to accounting for income taxes. The standard is effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2020, with early adoption permitted. The standard will be adopted upon the effective date for us beginning January 1, 2021. The Company is currently evaluating the timing of the adoption of ASU 2019-12 and the expected impact it could have on the Company’s financial statements and related disclosures. |
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