Nature of Business

Monopar Therapeutics Inc. (“Monopar” or the “Company”) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on developing proprietary therapeutics designed to extend life or improve quality of life for cancer patients. Monopar currently has three compounds in development: 1) Validive® (clonidine mucobuccal tablet; clonidine MBT), a Phase 2b/3 clinical stage, first-in-class mucoadhesive buccal tablet for the prevention of radiation induced severe oral mucositis (“SOM”) in oropharyngeal cancer patients; 2) camsirubicin (generic name for MNPR-201, GPX-150; 5-imino-13-deoxydoxorubicin), a Phase 2 clinical stage topoisomerase II-alpha selective novel analog of doxorubicin engineered specifically to retain anticancer activity while minimizing toxic effects on the heart; and 3) a preclinical stage uPAR targeted antibody, MNPR-101, for advanced cancers and severe COVID-19.

Liquidity

The Company has incurred an accumulated deficit of approximately $32.2 million as of December 31, 2020. To date, the Company has primarily funded its operations with the net proceeds from the Company’s initial public offering of its common stock on Nasdaq, sales of its common stock in the public market under a Capital on DemandTM Sales Agreement, private placements of convertible preferred stock and of common stock and cash provided in the camsirubicin asset purchase transaction. Management believes that currently available resources will provide sufficient funds to enable the Company to meet its planned obligations at least through March 2022. The Company’s ability to fund its future operations, including the clinical development of Validive and camsirubicin, is dependent upon its ability to execute its business strategy, to obtain additional funding and/or to execute collaborative research agreements. There can be no certainty that future financing or collaborative research agreements will occur at a time needed to maintain operations, if at all.

In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus (“COVID-19”) surfaced in China and spread to essentially all of the remaining world. By March 2020 COVID-19 was designated a global pandemic, resulting in government-mandated travel restrictions and temporary shutdowns or limitations of non-essential businesses in many states in the United States. The Company is able to remain open but has allowed its employees to work from home, if required by local authorities. In response to the current COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on clinical trials, Monopar has modified the original adaptive design Phase 3 clinical trial for its lead product candidate, Validive, to be a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial (“VOICE”) to better fit the types of trials which can enroll patients in the current environment. This modification allowed the Company to activate the VOICE clinical trial without requiring near-term financing. To complete the VOICE clinical program, including, if required, completing a smaller second Phase 3 confirmatory clinical trial, Monopar will require additional funding in the millions or tens of millions of dollars (depending on if the Company has consummated a collaboration or partnership or neither for Validive), which it is planning to pursue in the next 12 months. Due to many uncertainties, the Company is unable to estimate the pandemic’s financial impact or duration at this time, or its potential impact on the Company’s planned clinical trials including the pandemic’s effect on drug candidate manufacturing, shipping, patient recruitment at clinical sites and regulatory agencies around the globe.