Text extracted via OCR from the original document. May contain errors from the scanning process.
company may experience significant adverse effects, which in turn could negatively affect the
performance of the Fund. Moreover, the current regulatory framework may change or
additional regulations may arise at any stage during the product development phase of a
portfolio company, which may affect the company’s ability to obtain approval of its products.
The Fund may invest in companies that will need to obtain patents for their products, both in
the U.S. and in other countries. The patent protection of the intellectual property of healthcare
technology companies in many countries is highly uncertain and involves complex legal,
scientific and factual issues. The policy regarding allowable claimed subject matter of life
sciences or healthcare technology patents varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Dependence on Single Products
Companies in which the Fund invests may only have one product under development. There
can be no assurance that the product will be approved for marketing by the FDA or any foreign
regulatory agency. Further, competition to the product may develop from other new and
existing products. In either case, if a company is dependent on that one product, the
consequences of such failure could be devastating to the prospects of such company, which in
turn could negatively affect the performance of the Fund.
Dependence on Reimbursement and Third-Party Pricing Policies for Products
The ability of the Fund’s portfolio companies to commercialize any product candidate
successfully also will depend in part on the extent to which reimbursement for these products
and related treatments will be available from government health administration authorities,
private health insurers and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party
payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which
medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. A major trend in the U.S.
healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party
payors, particularly Medicare, have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the
amount of reimbursement for particular medications. Increasingly, third-party payors are
requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and
are challenging the prices charged for medical products. Portfolio companies cannot be sure
that coverage and reimbursement will be available for any product that they commercialize,
and, even if these are available, the level of reimbursement may not be satisfactory.
Reimbursement may affect the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which a
portfolio company obtains marketing approval. Obtaining and maintaining adequate
reimbursement for a portfolio company’s products may be particularly difficult because of the
higher prices often associated with drugs administered under the supervision of a physician or
because a drug may be administered in combination with other drugs that may carry high
prices. A portfolio company may be required to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies
to justify coverage and reimbursement or the level of reimbursement relative to other therapies.
If coverage and adequate reimbursement are not available or reimbursement is available only to
limited levels, a portfolio company may not be able to successfully commercialize any product
candidate for which it obtains marketing approval. This, in turn, could negatively affect the
performance of the Fund.
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