16. Stock Options

In September 2018, the Company’s stockholders approved our 2018 Equity Incentive Plan, which provides for a maximum of 1,150,000 awards that can be issued as options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, stock units, other equity awards or cash awards. 

On October 1, 2020, the Board approved an amendment to the Company’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Plan”) to increase the maximum number of shares that may be granted as an award under the Plan to any non-employee director during any one calendar year to: (i) chairperson or lead director – 300,000 shares of common stock; and (ii) other non-employee director - 250,000 shares of common stock, which reflects an increase in the annual limits for awards to be granted to non-employee directors under the Plan.

On November 20, 2020, the Company held its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. At the 2020 Annual Meeting, the Company’s stockholders approved an amendment to the Company’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan to increase the number of shares of common stock that the Company will have authority to grant under the plan by an additional 1,850,000 shares of common stock. On December 8, 2021, the Company held its 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. At the 2021 Annual Meeting, the Company’s stockholders approved an amendment to the Company’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan to increase the number of shares of common stock that the Company will have authority to grant under the plan by an additional 4,000,000 shares of common stock

During the period ended March 31, 2022, the Company issued ten year options to purchase 160,000 shares at an exercise price of $2.50 per share, of which 100,000 were issued to our Interim CFO and 60,000 to an employee.

The options awarded during the three months ended March 31, 2022 were valued using a Black-Scholes option pricing model.

The following assumptions were used in the Black-Scholes model:

A summary of all of the Company’s option activity during the period January 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 is as follows:

The following tables summarize information about stock options outstanding as of March 31, 2022:

As of March 31, 2022, there were unvested options to purchase 1,949,802 shares of common stock. Total expected unrecognized compensation cost related to such unvested options is $5,385,375 which is expected to be recognized over a period of 48 months.

As of March 31, 2022, there was an aggregate of 2,926,438 options to purchase shares of common stock granted under the Company’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan, and an aggregate of 655,301 restricted shares granted to certain officers and directors of the Company in settlement of liabilities owing to them, with 3,418,261 shares available for future grants.