Note 1 - Nature of Business

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

Notes to Financial Statements

Nature of Operations [Text Block]

1.

Nature of Business

Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (the “Company”) is a global, integrated orthopedic and regenerative medicines company committed to improving the lives of patients with degenerative orthopedic diseases and traumatic conditions with clinically meaningful therapies along the continuum of care, from palliative pain management to regenerative tissue repair. The Company has over

two

decades of global expertise developing, manufacturing, and commercializing products based on its proprietary Hyaluronic Acid (“HA”) technology. The Company’s orthopedic medicine portfolio includes ORTHOVISC, MONOVISC, and CINGAL, which alleviate pain and restore joint function by replenishing depleted HA, and HYALOFAST, a solid HA-based scaffold to aid cartilage repair and regeneration.

The Company is subject to risks common to companies in the biotechnology and medical device industries including, but

not

limited to, development by the Company or its competitors of new technological innovations, dependence on key personnel, protection of proprietary technology, commercialization of existing and new products, and compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and foreign regulations and approval requirements, as well as the ability to grow the Company’s business through appropriate commercial strategies.

At the Company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on

May 31, 2018,

the Company’s stockholders approved an increase in the number of shares of common stock that the Company is authorized to issue from

60

million to

90

million and ratified a change in the Company’s state of incorporation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the State of Delaware, pursuant to a plan of domestication. The Company became a Delaware corporation with the authorization to issue up to

90

million shares of its common stock on

June 6, 2018.

Upon its domestication in Delaware, the affairs of the Company became subject to the Delaware General Corporation Law, the Company implemented a new certificate of incorporation and new bylaws, and each previously outstanding share of the Company’s common stock as a Massachusetts corporation (Anika Massachusetts) converted into an outstanding share of common stock of the Company as a Delaware corporation (Anika Delaware). The domestication was a tax-free reorganization under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, and it did

not

affect the Company’s business operations.