NATURE OF BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATION |
9 Months Ended |
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Sep. 30, 2023 | |
NATURE OF BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATION | |
NATURE OF BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATION |
1. NATURE OF BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATION Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (the Company, our, we) is a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of cancer leveraging our proprietary phospholipid drug conjugate™ (PDC™) delivery platform that specifically targets cancer cells and delivers improved efficacy and better safety as a result of fewer off-target effects. The Company has incurred losses since inception in devoting substantially all of its efforts toward research and development and has an accumulated deficit of approximately $210,034,000 as of September 30, 2023. During the nine months ended September 30, 2023, the Company generated a net loss of approximately $30,535,000, and the Company expects that it will continue to generate operating losses for the foreseeable future. The Company believes that its cash balance as of September 30, 2023, is adequate to fund its basic budgeted operations into the second quarter of 2024. The Company’s ability to execute its current operating plan depends on its ability to obtain additional funding via the sale of equity and/or debt securities, a strategic transaction or otherwise. The Company plans to continue to actively pursue financing alternatives, but there can be no assurance that it will obtain the necessary funding, raising substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year of the date these financial statements are issued. The accompanying financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty. The condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared by Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (U.S. GAAP) for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. Management believes the disclosures made in this document are adequate with respect to interim reporting requirements. The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, contain all adjustments that are of a normal recurring nature necessary to present fairly the operating results, cash flows, and financial position of the Company as of and for the period ended September 30, 2023. The accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2022 has been derived from our audited financial statements. Operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 31, 2023. These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto included in the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, which was filed with the SEC on March 9, 2023. Principles of Consolidation — The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and the accounts of its wholly-owned subsidiary. All significant intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. Use of Estimates — The preparation of the accompanying consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make certain estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements and reported amounts of expenses during the reporting period. Significant estimates include the assumptions used in the accrual for potential liabilities, the valuation of the warrant liability, the valuation of debt and equity instruments, the valuation of stock options issued for services, and deferred tax valuation allowances. Actual results could differ from those estimates. Fixed Assets — Property and equipment are stated at cost. Depreciation on property and equipment is provided using the straight-line method over the estimated useful lives of the assets ( to 10 years). Because of the significant value of leasehold improvements purchased, leasehold improvements are depreciated over 64 months (their estimated useful life), which represents the full term of the lease at the time the leasehold improvements were capitalized. Our only long-lived assets are property and equipment. The Company periodically evaluates long-lived assets for potential impairment. Whenever events or circumstances change, an assessment is made as to whether there has been impairment to the value of long-lived assets by determining whether projected undiscounted cash flows generated by the applicable asset exceed its net book value as of the assessment date. There were no long-lived fixed asset impairment charges recorded during the nine months ended September 30, 2023. Right-of-Use (ROU) Asset and Lease Liabilities -The Company accounts for all material leases in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 842, Leases. ROU Assets are amortized over their estimated useful life, which represents the full term of the lease. Stock-Based Compensation — The Company uses the Black-Scholes option-pricing model to calculate the grant-date fair value of stock option awards. The resulting compensation expense for awards that are not performance-based is recognized on a straight-line basis over the service period of the award, which for stock option grants issued in 2023 and 2022 ranged from one year to three years. Research and Development — Research and development costs are expensed as incurred. The Company recognizes revenue and cost reimbursements from government grants when it is probable that the Company will comply with the conditions attached to the grant arrangement and the grant proceeds will be received. Government grants are recognized in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations on a systematic basis over the periods in which the Company recognizes the related costs for which the government grant is intended to compensate. Specifically, when government grants are related to reimbursements for cost of revenues or operating expenses, the government grants are recognized as a reduction of the related expense in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. The Company records government grants receivable in the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets in prepaid expenses and other current assets. Income Taxes — Income taxes are accounted for using the liability method of accounting. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on temporary differences between the financial statement basis and tax basis of assets and liabilities and net operating loss and credit carryforwards using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in income in the period that includes the enactment date. Valuation allowances are established when it is more likely than not that some portion of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. Management has provided a full valuation allowance against the Company’s gross deferred tax asset. Tax positions taken or expected to be taken in the course of preparing tax returns are required to be evaluated to determine whether the tax positions are “more likely than not” to be sustained by the applicable tax authority. Tax positions deemed not to meet a more-likely-than-not threshold would be recorded as tax expense in the current year. There are no uncertain tax positions that require accrual to or disclosure in the financial statements as of September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022. Fair Value of Financial Instruments — The guidance under FASB ASC Topic 825, Financial Instruments, requires disclosure of the fair value of certain financial instruments. Financial instruments in the accompanying financial statements consist of cash equivalents, prepaid expenses and other assets, accounts payable, warrant liabilities, and long-term obligations. The carrying amount of cash equivalents, prepaid expenses, other current assets, and accounts payable approximate their fair value as a result of their short-term nature. (See Note 2) Warrants — The Company accounts for warrants as either equity-classified or liability-classified instruments based on an assessment of the warrant’s specific terms and applicable authoritative guidance in ASC 480, Distinguishing Liabilities from Equity (“ASC 480”) and ASC 815, Derivatives and Hedging (“ASC 815”). The assessment considers whether the warrants are freestanding financial instruments pursuant to ASC 480, meet the definition of a liability pursuant to ASC 480, and whether the warrants meet all of the requirements for equity classification under ASC 815, including whether the warrants are indexed to the Company’s own common stock and whether the warrant holders could potentially require “net cash settlement” in a circumstance outside of the Company’s control, among other conditions for equity classification. This assessment, which requires the use of professional judgment, is conducted at the time of warrant issuance and as of each subsequent quarterly period end date while the warrants are outstanding. Valuation changes, as well as the cost to issue the warrants, are included in Other (Expense) Income in the accompanying Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. If these instruments are initially classified as liabilities and subsequently meet the requirements for equity classification, the Company reclassifies the fair value to equity. Preferred Stock — The Company accounts for preferred stock based upon their specific terms and the authoritative guidance in ASC 480 and ASC 815, including whether they are freestanding instruments, whether any redemption or conversion aspects exist and how they are required to be settled (particularly if there is a cash settlement aspect), whether they contain characteristics that are predominantly debt-like or equity-like, whether they have embedded derivatives, and if they have redemption features. Based upon analysis of these criteria, the preferred stock will be classified as either debt, temporary (or “mezzanine”) equity, or permanent equity. The resultant classification is then evaluated quarterly to determine whether any change to the classification is required. Concentration of Credit Risk — Financial instruments that subject the Company to credit risk consist of cash and cash equivalents on deposit with financial institutions. The Company’s excess cash as of September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022 is on deposit in interest-bearing accounts with well-established financial institutions. At times, such amounts may exceed the FDIC insurance limits. As of September 30, 2023, and December 31, 2022, uninsured cash balances totaled approximately $18,486,000 and $19,400,000, respectively. Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements — For the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2022, management adopted ASU 2021-10, Government Assistance (Topic 832), which aims to provide increased transparency by requiring business entities to disclose information about certain type of government assistance they receive in the notes to the financial statements. Reimbursements of eligible expenditures pursuant to government assistance programs are recorded as reductions of operating costs when there is reasonable assurance that the Company will comply with the conditions attached to the grant arrangement and when the reimbursement has been claimed. The determination of the amount of the claim, and accordingly the receivable amount, requires management to make calculations based on its interpretation of eligible expenditures in accordance with the terms of the programs. The reimbursement claims submitted by the Company are subject to review by the relevant government agencies. The Company currently has a cancer treatment research award through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) totaling approximately $2.0 million over a period of approximately three years. In September 2022, we were awarded $1.98 million in additional grant funding to expand our ongoing Phase 1 study of iopofosine I 131 in children and adolescents with inoperable relapsed or refractory high grade gliomas (HGGs). The grant was awarded by the NCI based upon the initial signals of efficacy in the Phase 1 study, which is an international, open-label, dose escalation, safety study. The funding allows for an expansion from Part 1a into the Part 1b portion of our ongoing Phase 1 pediatric study. During the three months ended September 30, 2023, the Company received approximately $667,000 in NCI grant funding under the grants described above, all of which was reported as a reduction of research and development (R&D) expenses. During the nine months ended September 30, 2023, the Company received approximately $1,314,000 in NCI grants, all of which was reported as a reduction of research and development expenses. The Company evaluates all Accounting Standards Updates (ASUs) issued by the FASB for consideration of their applicability to our consolidated financial statements. We have assessed all ASUs issued but not yet adopted and concluded that those not disclosed are not relevant to the Company or are not expected to have a material impact. |