Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Commitments and Contingencies

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Commitments and Contingencies
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2021
Commitments and Contingencies.  
Commitments and Contingencies

5.     Commitments and Contingencies

Lease Commitments

We lease our office facility under operating lease that expires in June 2024. Rent expense associated with this lease was approximately $0.2 million and $0.3 million for years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Minimum payments

Our manufacturing agreement, as amended, with DPT, our contract manufacture, which ended in October 2020, provided for a minimum manufacturing fee of $1.0 million. In the event we did not have DPT manufacture sufficient quantities of product to exceed the minimum manufacturing fee, DPT may invoice us for the amount of the shortfall.

Guarantees and Indemnifications

As permitted under Delaware law and in accordance with our Bylaws, we indemnify our officers and directors for certain events or occurrences while the officer or director is or was serving at our request in such capacity. The term of the indemnification period is for the officer’s or director’s lifetime. The maximum amount of potential future indemnification is unlimited; however, we have a director and officer insurance policy that limits our exposure and may enable us to recover a portion of any future amounts paid. We believe the fair value of these indemnification agreements is minimal. Accordingly, we have not recorded any liabilities for these agreements as of December 31, 2021.

In the normal course of business, we have commitments to make certain milestone payments to various clinical research organizations in connection with our clinical trial activities. Payments are contingent upon the achievement of specific milestones or events as defined in the agreements, and we have made appropriate accruals in our financial statements for those milestones that were achieved as of December 31, 2021. We also provide indemnifications of varying scope to our CROs and investigators against claims made by third parties arising from the use of our products and processes in clinical trials. Historically, costs related to these indemnification provisions were immaterial. We also maintain various liability insurance policies that limit our exposure. We are unable to estimate the maximum potential impact of these indemnification provisions on our future results of operations.

Legal Proceedings

A legal proceeding has been initiated by a former employee alleging wrongful termination, retaliation, infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision, hiring and retention and slander. An independent investigation into this individual’s allegations of whistleblower retaliation, while still an employee, was conducted utilizing an outside investigator and concluded that such allegations were not substantiated. We intend to vigorously defend the lawsuit (which we have compelled into arbitration); however, in light of our cash position, there can be no assurance that the defense and/or settlement of this matter will not have a material adverse impact on our business.