Dare Bioscience, Inc.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K, in particular ITEM 1. "BUSINESS," ITEM 7. "MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS,” and the information incorporated by reference herein contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, contained in this report, including statements regarding our strategy, future operations, future financial position, projected revenue, funding and expenses, prospects, plans and objectives of management, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements, in some cases, can be identified by terms such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “design,” “intend,” “expect,” “could,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “seek,” “pursue,” “should,” “would,” “contemplate,” “project,” “target,” “tend to,” or the negative version of these words and similar expressions.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including those factors described in PART I, ITEM 1A, "RISK FACTORS,” in this report, and elsewhere in this report. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. The following factors are among those that may cause such differences:

•Inability to raise additional capital, under favorable terms or at all, to fund our operating needs and continue as a going concern;

•Failure to maintain the listing of our common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market or another nationally recognized exchange;

•The number and scope of product development programs we pursue;

•Difficulties or delays in commencement or completion, or the termination or suspension, of our current or planned clinical or preclinical studies;

•Clinical trial outcomes and results of preclinical development;

•Failure to complete development of our product candidates or submit and obtain United States Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, or foreign regulatory authority approval for our product candidates on projected timelines or budgets, or at all;

•Challenges and delays in obtaining timely supplies of our product candidates, including their components as well as the finished product, in the quantities needed in accordance with current good manufacturing practices, our specifications and other applicable requirements;

•The performance of third parties on which we rely to conduct nonclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates;

•Inability to enter into arrangements with outsourcing facilities on commercially reasonable terms required to compound and distribute the compounded drugs that we seek to make available under Section 503B of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA;

•The removal of sildenafil citrate or any other bulk drug substance needed to compound the compounded drugs that we seek to make available under Section 503B of the FDCA from the FDA’s list of bulk drug substances that can be compounded under Section 503B of the FDCA;

•The performance of third parties on which we will rely to bring to market, or assist us in bringing to market, compounded drugs;

•A change in regulatory requirements related to compounded drugs under Section 503B of the FDCA;

•Our failure, or a failure of a strategic collaborator, to successfully commercialize our product candidates, if approved, or our failure to otherwise monetize our portfolio programs and assets;

•Termination by a collaborator of our respective out-license agreements for commercialization of XACIATO™ (clindamycin phosphate) vaginal gel 2%, or XACIATO, and Ovaprene®, or, in the case of Ovaprene, a decision by the collaborator not to make the license grant fully effective following its review of the results of the ongoing pivotal clinical trial of Ovaprene;

•The timing and amount of future royalty, milestone or other payments to us, if any, under our out-license agreement for Ovaprene, and of upside-sharing milestone payments from XOMA under our traditional and synthetic royalty purchase agreements, if any;

•The performance of third parties on which we rely to commercialize, or assist us in commercializing, XACIATO and any future product;

•Difficulties with maintaining existing collaborations relating to the development and/or commercialization of our product candidates, or establishing new ones on a timely basis or on acceptable terms, or at all;

•The terms and conditions of any future strategic collaborations relating to our product candidates;

•The degree of market acceptance that XACIATO and any future product achieves;

•Coverage and reimbursement levels for XACIATO and any future product by government health care programs, private health insurance companies and other third-party payors;

•Our loss of, or inability to attract, key personnel;

•A change in the FDA's prior determination that the Center for Devices and Radiological Health would lead the review of a premarket approval application for potential marketing approval of Ovaprene;

•A change in regulatory requirements for our product candidates, including the development pathway pursuant to Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA, or the FDA's 505(b)(2) pathway;

•Unfavorable differences between preliminary, interim or topline clinical study data reported by us and final study results;

•Communication from the FDA or another regulatory authority, including a complete response letter, that such agency does not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses of clinical or nonclinical study data regarding a product candidate, or that such agency interprets or weighs the importance of study data differently than we have in a manner that negatively impacts the candidate's prospects for regulatory approval in a timely manner, or at all;

•Failure to select product candidates that capitalize on the most scientifically, clinically or commercially promising or profitable indications or therapeutic areas within women's health including due to our limited financial resources;

•Loss or impairment of our in-licensed rights to develop and commercialize XACIATO and our product candidates;

•The timing and amount of our payment and other obligations under our in-license and acquisition agreements for XACIATO and our product candidates;

•Developments by our competitors that make XACIATO, or any potential product we develop, less competitive or obsolete;

•Unfavorable or unanticipated macroeconomic factors, geopolitical events or conflicts, public health emergencies, or natural disasters;

•Weak interest in women's health relative to other healthcare sectors from the investment community or from pharmaceutical companies and other potential development and commercialization collaborators;

•Cyber-attacks, security breaches or similar events compromising our technology systems and data, our financial resources and other assets, or the technology systems and data of third parties on which we rely;

•Difficulty in introducing branded products in a market made up of generic products;

•Inability to adequately protect or enforce our, or our licensor’s, intellectual property rights;

•Lack of patent protection for the active ingredients in XACIATO and certain of our product candidates that expose them to competition from other formulations using the same active ingredients;

•Higher risk of failure associated with product candidates in preclinical stages of development that may lead investors to assign them little to no value and make these assets difficult to fund;

•Dependence on grants and other financial awards from governmental entities and private foundations to advance the development of several of our product candidates;

•Disputes or other developments concerning our intellectual property rights;

•Actual and anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly or annual operating results or results that differ from investors' expectations for such results;

•Price and volume fluctuations in the stock market, and in our stock in particular, which could cause investors to experience losses and subject us to securities class-action litigation;

•Development of safety, efficacy or quality concerns related to our product or product candidates (or third-party products or product candidates that share similar characteristics or drug substances), whether or not scientifically justified, leading to delays in or discontinuation of product development, product recalls or withdrawals, diminished sales, and/or other significant negative consequences;

•Product liability claims or governmental investigations;

•Changes in government laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions, including laws and regulations governing the research, development, approval, clearance, manufacturing, supply, distribution, pricing and/or marketing of our products, product candidates and related intellectual property, health care information and data privacy and security laws, transparency laws and fraud and abuse laws, and the enforcement thereof affecting our business; and

•Increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and substantial time devoted by our management to compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this report, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.

All forward-looking statements in this report are current only as of the date of this report. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which any statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

The terms “we,” “us,” “our,” “Daré” or the “Company” refer collectively to Daré Bioscience, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, unless otherwise stated or the context otherwise requires. All information in this report is based on our fiscal year. Unless otherwise stated, references to particular years, quarters, months or periods refer to our fiscal years ending December 31 and the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years.

Overview

We are a biopharmaceutical company driven by a mission to challenge the status quo, making women's health a priority. We exist to accelerate innovation in women’s health and we believe that innovation does not have to start from scratch. With growing awareness around menopause, sexual health, and vaginal health, the conversation is shifting, but access to real, evidence-based solutions still lags behind. We continuously hear from healthcare providers, researchers, and women themselves about the urgent need for access to evidence-based treatment options. Our goal is to fulfill that need by bringing to market as soon as practicable innovative evidence-based treatment solutions that address decades of unmet needs in women’s health and enhance outcomes and convenience, primarily in the areas of contraception, sexual health, pelvic pain, fertility, infectious disease, vaginal health and menopause - areas in women's health that we believe represent compelling and meaningful market opportunities. The solutions we aim to bring to market will primarily be available only with a physician’s prescription – either as an FDA-approved product or as a compounded drug under Section 503B of the FDCA. We may also bring to market consumer health products that can be obtained without a physician’s prescription.

We began assembling our diverse portfolio of assets in 2017 through acquisitions, exclusive in-licenses and other collaborations. The first FDA-approved product to emerge from our portfolio is XACIATO™ (clindamycin phosphate) vaginal gel 2%, or XACIATO (pronounced zah-she-AH-toe). We achieved FDA approval of XACIATO three years after acquiring rights to the program. XACIATO was approved by the FDA in December 2021 as a single-dose prescription medication for the treatment of bacterial vaginosis in females 12 years of age and older. In 2022, we entered into an agreement with an affiliate of Organon & Co., Organon International GmbH, or Organon, whereby Organon licensed exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize XACIATO. Organon commenced U.S. marketing of XACIATO in the fourth quarter of 2023 and, in January 2024, Organon announced that XACIATO was available nationwide. As described below, to provide funding for the development of the product candidates in our pipeline, in April 2024, we entered into an agreement with XOMA (US) LLC, or XOMA, whereby we sold our rights to all royalty and potential milestone payments based on net sales of XACIATO under our agreement with Organon, net of our obligations to certain third parties, until XOMA receives a specified return on its investment, after which we will share equally in the royalty and milestone payments earned on net sales of XACIATO from Organon.

Our product candidates are in various stages of development, from pre-clinical through a pivotal Phase 3 clinical study. The most advanced product candidates we are developing are: Ovaprene®, an investigational, hormone-free, monthly intravaginal contraceptive currently being evaluated in a pivotal Phase 3 clinical study, whose U.S. commercial rights are under a license agreement with Bayer; Sildenafil Cream, 3.6%, a novel cream formulation of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra®, for the treatment of female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD); and DARE-HRT1, an intravaginal ring designed to deliver combination menopausal hormone therapy, bio-identical 17β-estradiol and progesterone together, continuously over a 28-day period for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms, also known as hot flashes.

As discussed in more detail below, because we believe women should not have to wait for needed medical treatment solutions, we are expanding our business strategy to include 503B compounding as a dual-path approach to bring some of our proprietary formulations to market as soon as practicable while we continue to pursue FDA approval of our product candidates. 503B compounding refers to the production and supply of compounded drugs by 503B-registered outsourcing facilities without patient-specific prescriptions in accordance with Section 503B of the FDCA. We are taking action to utilize 503B compounding to bring our proprietary Sildenafil Cream formulation to market, and we are targeting to make it available in the fourth quarter of 2025. In parallel, we will continue to pursue FDA approval of Sildenafil Cream as a treatment for FSAD. Bringing our proprietary Sildenafil Cream formulation to market via 503B compounding will not impact the regulatory process or commercial opportunity for an FDA-approved Sildenafil Cream product. Rather, if successful, 503B compounding will be a source of revenue from existing assets that is non-dilutive to our stockholders.