UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

x ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022

o TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Commission file number: 001-39184

SWK HOLDINGS CORPORATION

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

Delaware	77-0435679
(State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization)	(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)

14755 Preston Road, Suite 105
Dallas, TX	75254
(Address of Principal Executive Offices)	(Zip Code)

(972) 687-7250
(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of Each Class	Trading Symbol(s)	Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered

Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share	SWKH	The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes o No x

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No x

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No o

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files). Yes x No o

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Large accelerated filer o		Accelerated filer o

Non-accelerated filer x		Smaller reporting company x
		Emerging growth company o

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the Registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. o

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. o

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. o

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). o

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes o No x

The aggregate market value of the Registrant’s Common Stock held by non-affiliates is $63,839,329 based on the June 30, 2022, closing price of the Registrant’s Common Stock on such date as reported on The Nasdaq Stock Market of $17.47 per share.

On March 17, 2023, the Registrant had outstanding approximately 12,815,813 shares of Common Stock, $0.001 par value per share.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

DOCUMENT	PART OF FORM 10-K
Portions of Definitive Proxy Statement for the 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be filed no later than 120 days after the end of the Registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2022	PART III

SWK Holdings Corporation

Form 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS

		Page
PART I.
Item 1	Business	1
Item 1A	Risk Factors	5
Item 1B	Unresolved Staff Comments	23
Item 2	Properties	23
Item 3	Legal Proceedings	23
Item 4	Mine Safety Disclosures	23

PART II.
Item 5	Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	24
Item 6	Reserved	24
Item 7	Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	25
Item 7A	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk	35
Item 8	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	36
Item 9	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	71
Item 9A	Controls and Procedures	71
Item 9B	Other Information	72
Item 9C	Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspection	72

PART III.
Item 10	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	73
Item 11	Executive Compensation	73
Item 12	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	73
Item 13	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	73
Item 14	Principal Accountant Fees and Services	73

PART IV.
Item 15	Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules	74
Item 16	Form 10-K Summary	75

	Signatures	76

	Exhibit Index	77

PART I

Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.

In addition to historical information, this Annual Report on Form 10-K (“Annual Report”) contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. From time to time, we may also provide oral or written forward-looking statements in other materials we release to the public. Such forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but rather are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our business and industry, and our beliefs and assumptions, and include, but are not limited to, statements under the heading “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expects,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “should,” “will” and variations of these words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our control, are difficult to predict and could cause actual results to differ materially (both favorably and unfavorably) from those expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements.

These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those described in Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” and elsewhere in this report. Forward-looking statements that were believed to be true at the time made may ultimately prove to be incorrect or false. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

Trademarks, Trade Names and Service Marks

This Annual Report contains certain trademarks, which are protected under applicable intellectual property laws and are the Company’s property. Solely for convenience, the Company’s trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report may appear without the ® or TM symbol, but such references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that the Company will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, its rights to these trademarks and trade names. We own rights to trademarks and service marks that we believe are necessary to conduct our business as currently operated. In the United States, we own a number of trademarks, including the Peptelligence and Ovarest trademarks. We also own many of these marks and others in several foreign countries and we are pursuing registration of several other trademarks.

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

Overview

SWK Holdings Corporation (the “Company,” “we,” or “us”) was incorporated in July 1996 in California and reincorporated in Delaware in September 1999. In July 2012, we commenced a strategy of building a specialty finance and asset management business. In August 2019, we commenced a complementary strategy of building a pharmaceutical development, manufacturing and intellectual property licensing business. Our operations comprise two reportable segments: “Finance Receivables” and “Pharmaceutical Development.” We evaluate and invest in a broad range of healthcare related companies and products with innovative intellectual property, including the biotechnology, medical device, medical diagnostics and related tools, animal health and pharmaceutical industries (collectively, “life science”). We allocate capital to each segment in order to generate income through the sales of life science products by third parties and related earned income sources. We are headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Finance Receivables Segment

Our Finance Receivables segment strategy is to be a leading healthcare capital provider by offering sophisticated, customized financing solutions to a broad range of life science companies, institutions and inventors. This segment is primarily focused on monetizing cash flow streams derived from commercial-stage products and related intellectual property through royalty purchases and financings, as well as through the creation of synthetic revenue interests in commercialized products. Our business partners are primarily engaged in selling products that directly or indirectly cure diseases and/or improve the wellness of people or animals, or they receive royalties paid on the sales of such products. For example, our biotechnology and pharmaceutical business partners manufacture medication that directly treat disease states, whereas our life science tools partners sell a wide variety of research instrumentation to help other companies conduct research into disease states. We have been deploying our assets to earn interest, fees, and other income pursuant to this strategy, and we continue to identify and review financing and similar opportunities on an ongoing basis with financial solutions that are tailored to the individual needs of our business partners. In addition, through our wholly-owned subsidiary, SWK Advisors LLC, we provide non-discretionary investment advisory services to institutional clients in separately managed accounts to similarly invest in life science finance. SWK Advisors LLC is registered as an investment advisor with the Texas State Securities Board. We intend to fund transactions through our own working capital and our revolving credit facility, as well as by building our asset management business by raising additional third-party capital to be invested alongside our capital.

We fill a niche that we believe is underserved in the sub-$50 million transaction size market. Since many of our competitors that provide longer term, non-traditional debt and/or royalty-related financing options typically have much greater financial resources than us, they tend not to focus on transaction sizes below $50 million, as it is generally inefficient for them to do so. In addition, we do not believe that a sufficient number of other companies offer similar types of long-term financing options to fill the demand of the sub-$50 million market. As such, we believe we face less competition from such investors in transactions that are less than $50 million.

As of March 17, 2023, and since inception of the strategy, we and our partners have executed transactions with 50 different parties under our specialty finance strategy, funding an aggregate of approximately $725.2 million in various financial products across the life science sector. Our portfolio includes senior and subordinated debt backed by royalties and synthetic royalties paid by companies in the life science sector, and purchased royalties generated by sales of life science products and related intellectual property.

The objective of our Finance Receivables segment is to maximize our portfolio total return in the context of a prudent level of risk, and thus, increase our net income and book value by generating income from three sources:

	1.	primarily owning or financing through debt investments, royalties or revenue interests generated by the sales of life science products and related intellectual property;

	2.	receiving interest and other income by advancing capital in the form of secured debt to companies in the life science sector; and

	3.	to a lesser extent, realizing capital appreciation from equity-related investments in the life sciences sector.

In our portfolio we seek to achieve attractive risk-adjusted current yields and opportunities with the potential for equity-like returns with protection that credit provides.

The majority of our finance receivables transactions are structured similarly to factoring transactions whereby we provide capital in exchange for an interest in an existing revenue stream. We primarily provide capital to companies following the commercialization of a product, although in rare situations we consider pre-approval financings as well. The existing revenue stream can take several forms, but is most commonly either a royalty derived from the sales of a life science product (1) from the marketing efforts of a third party, such as a royalty paid to an inventor on the sales of a medicine, or (2) from the marketing efforts of a partner company, such as a medical device company that directly sells its own products. Our structured debt investments may include warrants or other features, giving us the potential to realize enhanced returns on a portion of our portfolio. Capital that we provide directly to our partners is generally used for growth and general working capital purposes, as well as for acquisitions or recapitalizations in select cases. We generally fund the full amount of transactions up to $25 million through our working capital.

In circumstances where a transaction is greater than $25 million, we typically seek to syndicate amounts in excess of $25 million to both other investors and our investment advisory clients. We do not expect to earn investment advisory income in transactions where we partner with investors other than our investment advisory clients.

Although we have partnered with investment advisory clients in the past, we currently do not have any transactions in which we have partnered with investment advisory clients. We expect to continue to offer transaction opportunities to our investment advisory clients, as appropriate for each client’s investment strategy. When a client opts into a transaction, each client receives its pro rata allocation of income produced by a transaction in which it participates, and the client pays us management and incentive fees according to a written investment advisory agreement. Fees paid by clients may differ depending upon the terms negotiated with each client and are paid directly by the client upon receipt of an invoice from us. We may seek to raise discretionary capital from similar investors in the future.

We source our investment opportunities through a combination of our senior management’s proprietary relationships within the industry, outbound business development efforts and inbound inquiries from companies, institutions and inventors interested in learning about our capital financing alternatives. Our investment advisory clients generally do not originate investment opportunities for us.

Pharmaceutical Development Segment

During 2019, we commenced our Pharmaceutical Development segment with the acquisition of Enteris BioPharma, Inc. (“Enteris”). Enteris is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company offering innovative formulation solutions built around its proprietary oral drug delivery technologies, the Peptelligence® platform.

Our Pharmaceutical Development segment strategy is to utilize the technology platform to create a wholly-owned portfolio of milestone and royalty income by out-licensing our technology in two ways. First, we intend to continue to out-license our Peptelligence® technology to pharmaceutical companies to create novel and important oral therapeutic treatments for a wide variety of indications. Second, we intend to out-license to pharmaceutical companies assets from our internal product pipeline of off-patent previously approved drug compounds with which we seek to create novel formulations using our proprietary technology to develop treatments that have meaningful therapeutic benefits for patients and caregivers. We also seek to generate income by providing customers pharmaceutical development, formulation and manufacturing services.

Competition

In our Finance Receivables segment, we face competition in the pursuit of outside investors, investment management clients and opportunities to deploy our capital in attractive healthcare related companies. Our primary competitors provide financing to prospective companies and include non-bank financial institutions, federal or state chartered banks, venture debt funds, venture capital funds, private equity funds, pharmaceutical royalty and other investment funds, business development companies and investment banks. Many of these entities have greater financial and managerial resources than we have. Some of these competitors may also have a lower cost of capital and access to funding sources that are not available to us, which may create a competitive disadvantage for us. As a result, we tend not to compete on price, but instead focus on our industry experience, flexible financing options and speed to evaluate and complete a transaction. In addition, since many of our competitors that provide non-traditional debt and/or longer term, royalty-related financing options have much greater financial resources than us, they tend not to focus on transaction sizes below $50 million as it is generally inefficient for them to do so. As such, we believe we face less competition from such investors in transactions that are less than $50 million.

In our Pharmaceutical Development segment, we face competition in introducing products that improve efficacy, safety, patients’ and clinicians’ ease of use and cost-effectiveness. The success of new product offerings will depend on many factors, including our ability to properly anticipate and satisfy customer needs, obtain regulatory approvals on a timely basis, develop and manufacture products in an economic and timely manner, obtain or maintain advantageous positions with respect to intellectual property, and differentiate products from competitors. A failure by us to successfully commercialize existing or planned products could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

For additional information concerning the competitive risks we face, see Item 1A., Risk Factors.

Governmental Regulation

For additional information concerning the effect of existing or probable government regulation on our business, see Item 1A., Risk Factors.

Employees

As of December 31, 2022, we had 21 employees, all of whom are full-time. None of our employees are represented by a labor union, and we consider our employee relations to be good.

Additional Information

We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information required by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act’’), with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Our SEC filings are available to the public from the SEC’s internet site at http://www.sec.gov.

Our internet site is http://www.swkhold.com. We will make available free of charge through our website in the “Investor Relations - SEC Filings” section our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and Forms 3, 4 and 5 filed on behalf of directors and executive officers and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. Also, posted on our website in the “Investor Relations - Corporate Governance” section are charters for our Audit Committee, Compensation Committee and Governance and Nominating Committee as well as our Code of Ethics and Insider Trading Policy governing our directors, officers and employees. Information on or accessible through our website is not a part of, and is not incorporated into, this Annual Report.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

An investment in our common stock involves significant risks. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties and the risk factors set forth in the documents and reports filed with the SEC and the risks described below before you make an investment decision regarding our common stock. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also affect our business operations.

Risks Related to Finance Receivables Segment

We may suffer losses on our principal invested in credit and royalty transactions.

Most of the assets of our Finance Receivables segment are, and are expected to continue to be, royalty streams or debt backed by royalty streams or revenue interests paid by small and middle-market life science businesses, which are highly speculative and involve a high degree of risk of credit loss. In addition, we own royalties or invest in debt backed by royalties or revenue interests that are derived by pharmaceutical and biologic products that are early in their commercial launch, face intense competition or are subject to other risks, which similarly involve a high degree of risk of principal loss. If the underlying products do not generate anticipated revenues, we may suffer a loss of our investment.

In addition, the small and middle-market companies which that we target to advance debt are subject to a number of other significant risks, including:

these companies may have limited financial resources and may be unable to meet their obligations under their financial instruments that we hold, which may be accompanied by a deterioration in the value of their assets or of any collateral with respect to any financial obligations and a reduction in the likelihood of our realizing on any guarantees we may have obtained in connection with our investment;

they may have shorter operating histories, narrower product lines and smaller market shares than larger businesses, which tend to render them more vulnerable to competitors’ actions and market conditions, as well as general economic downturns;

SEC Form 10-K filed by SWK Holdings Corporation