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BUSINESS DESCRIPTION
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2017
BUSINESS DESCRIPTION [Abstract]  
BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

1. BUSINESS DESCRIPTION



Business Description.



Precipio, Inc., and Subsidiary, (“we”, “us”, “our”, the “Company” or “Precipio”) is a cancer diagnostics company providing diagnostic products and services to the oncology market. We have built and continue to develop a platform designed to eradicate the problem of misdiagnosis by harnessing the intellect, expertise and technology developed within academic institutions and delivering quality diagnostic information to physicians and their patients worldwide. We operate a cancer diagnostic laboratory located in New Haven, Connecticut and have partnered with the Yale School of Medicine to capture the expertise, experience and technologies developed within academia so that we can provide a better standard of cancer diagnostics and solve the growing problem of cancer misdiagnosis. We also operate a research and development facility in Omaha, Nebraska which will focus on further development of ICE-COLD-PCR (“ICP”), the patented technology which was exclusively licensed by us from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. (“Dana-Farber”) at Harvard University (“Harvard”). The research and development center will focus on the development of this technology, which we believe will enable us to commercialize other technologies developed by our current and future academic partners. Our platform connects patients, physicians and diagnostic experts residing within academic institutions. Launched in 2017, the platform facilitates the following relationships:



Patients: patients may search for physicians in their area and consult directly with academic experts that are on the platform. Patients may also have access to new academic discoveries as they become commercially available.



Physicians: physicians can connect with academic experts to seek consultations on behalf of their patients and may also provide consultations for patients in their area seeking medical expertise in that physician’s relevant specialty. Physicians will also have access to new diagnostic solutions to help improve diagnostic accuracy.



Academic Experts: academic experts on the platform can make themselves available for patients or physicians seeking access to their expertise. Additionally, these experts have a platform available to commercialize their research discoveries.



We intend to continue updating our platform to allow for patient-to-patient communications and allow individuals to share stories and provide support for one another, to allow physicians to consult with their peers to discuss and share challenges and solutions, and to allow academic experts to interact with others in academia on the platform to discuss their research and cross-collaborate.



ICP was developed at Harvard and is licensed exclusively by us from Dana-Farber. The technology enables the detection of genetic mutations in liquid biopsies, such as blood samples. The field of liquid biopsies is a rapidly growing market, aimed at solving the challenge of obtaining genetic information on disease progression and changes from sources other than a tumor biopsy.



Gene sequencing is performed on tissue biopsies taken surgically from the tumor site in order to identify potential therapies that will be more effective in treating the patient. There are several limitations to this process. First, surgical procedures have several limitations, including:



Cost: surgical procedures are usually performed in a costly hospital environment. For example, according to a recent study the mean cost of lung biopsies is greater than $14,000; surgery also involves hospitalization and recovery time.



Surgical access: various tumor sites are not always accessible (e.g. brain tumors), in which cases no biopsy is available for diagnosis.



Risk: patient health may not permit undergoing an invasive surgery; therefore a biopsy cannot be obtained at all.



Time: the process of scheduling and coordinating a surgical procedure often takes time, delaying the start of patient treatment.



Second, there are several tumor-related limitations that provide a challenge to obtaining such genetic information from

a tumor:



Tumors are heterogeneous by nature: a tissue sample from one area of the tumor may not properly represent the tumor’s entire genetic composition; thus, the diagnostic results from a tumor may be incomplete and non-representative.



Metastases: in order to accurately test a patient with metastatic disease, ideally an individual biopsy sample should be taken from each site (if those sites are even known). These biopsies are very difficult to obtain; therefore physicians often rely on biopsies taken from the primary tumor site.



The advent of technologies enabling liquid biopsies as an alternative to tumor biopsy and analysis is based on the fact that tumors (both primary and metastatic) shed cells and fragments of DNA into the blood stream. These blood samples are called “liquid biopsies” that contain circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA, which hold the same genetic information found in the tumor(s). That tumor DNA is the target of genetic analysis. However, since the quantity of tumor DNA is very small in proportion to the “normal” (or “healthy”) DNA within the blood stream, there is a need to identify and separate the tumor DNA from the normal DNA.



ICP is an enrichment technology that enables the laboratory to focus its analysis on the tumor DNA by enriching, and thereby “multiplying” the presence of, tumor DNA, while maintaining the normal DNA at its same level. Once the enrichment process has been completed, the laboratory genetic testing equipment is able to identify genetic abnormalities presented in the ctDNA, and an analysis can be conducted at a higher level of sensitivity, to enable the detection of such genetic abnormalities. The technology is encapsulated into a chemical that is provided in the form of a kit and sold to other laboratories who wish to conduct these tests in-house. The chemical within the kit is added to the specimen preparation process, enriching the sample for the tumor DNA so that the analysis will detect those genetic abnormalities.

Merger Transaction



On June 29, 2017, the Company (then known as “Transgenomic, Inc.”, or “Transgenomic”), completed a reverse merger (the “Merger”) with Precipio Diagnostics, LLC, a privately held Delaware limited liability company (“Precipio Diagnostics”) in accordance with the terms of the Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”), dated October 12, 2016, as amended on February 2, 2017 and June 29, 2017, by and among Transgenomic, Precipio Diagnostics and New Haven Labs Inc. (“Merger Sub”) a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transgenomic. Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, Merger Sub merged with and into Precipio Diagnostics, with Precipio Diagnostics surviving the Merger as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the combined company (See Note 3 - Reverse Merger). In connection with the Merger, the Company changed its name from Transgenomic, Inc. to Precipio, Inc., relisted its common stock under Precipio, Inc. on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (“NASDAQ”), and effected a 1-for-30 reverse stock split of its common stock. Upon the consummation of the Merger, the historical financial statements of Precipio Diagnostics become the Company's historical financial statements. Accordingly, the historical financial statements of Precipio Diagnostics are included in the comparative prior periods. As a result of the Merger, historical preferred stock, common stock, restricted units, warrants and additional paid-in capital, including share and per share amounts, have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the equity structure of the combined company, including the effect of the Merger exchange ratio. Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, each outstanding unit of Precipio Diagnostics was exchanged for 10.2502 pre-reverse stock split shares of Company Common Stock (the “Exchange Ratio”). See Note 3 - Reverse Merger for additional discussion of the Merger.



Going Concern.

The consolidated financial statements have been prepared using accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”) applicable for a going concern, which assume that the Company will realize its assets and discharge its liabilities in the ordinary course of business. The Company has incurred substantial operating losses and has used cash in its operating activities for the past several years. As of December 31, 2017, the Company had a net loss of $20.7 million, negative working capital of $8.3 million and net cash used in operating activities of $6.7 million. The Company’s ability to continue as a going concern is dependent upon a combination of achieving its business plan, including generating additional revenue, and raising additional financing to meet its debt obligations and paying liabilities arising from normal business operations when they come due. 



To meet its current and future obligations the Company has taken the following steps to capitalize the business and successfully achieve its business plan:

·

On January 8, 2018, the Company received gross proceeds of $400,000 when it entered into an agreement with the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development by which the Company received a grant of $100,000 and a loan of $300,000 with a payment term of ten years. 

·

On February 8, 2018 the Company entered into an equity purchase agreement for the purchase of up to $8,000,000 of shares of the Company’s common stock from time to time, at the Company’s option. The initial sale of 721,153 shares of the Company’s common stock resulted in net proceeds to the Company of approximately $709,000.

·

On February 20, 2018 Crede Capital Group LLC (“Crede”) filed a lawsuit against the Company claiming that the Company owed Crede $2.2 million. On March 12, 2018, the Company settled with Crede for approximately $1.9 million and the settlement allows the Company to pay the $1.9 million over a sixteen month payment plan concluding in May 2019.

·

On March 21, 2018, the Company entered into an agreement with investors of Series B and Series C Preferred shares and warrants to convert their respective holdings into shares of the Company’s common stock.  Pursuant to the agreement, to incent such investors, the Company agreed to a conversion price for such preferred stock and an exercise price of $0.75 per share of common stock for such warrants and each investor agreed to convert its outstanding shares and exercise certain amounts of warrants.  As a result of this initiative the Company has substantially restructured its equity structure, eliminating all but 47 shares of preferred stock. As of April 13, 2018, these transactions have resulted in net cash proceeds to the Company of $0.2 million.



Notwithstanding the aforementioned circumstances, there remains substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.  There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to successfully achieve its initiatives summarized above in order to continue as a going concern. The accompanying financial statements have been prepared assuming the Company will continue as a going concern and do not include any adjustments that might result should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern as a result of the outcome of this uncertainty.