Coherus Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Coherus Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript May 11, 2026

Coherus Oncology, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.25, expectations were $-0.26333.

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2026 Coherus Oncology, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Carrie Graham. Please go ahead.

Carrie Graham: Thank you, Heidi. Good afternoon, and welcome to Coherus Oncology’s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Denny Lanfear, Chief Executive Officer of Coherus; Dr. Rosh Dias, Chief Medical Officer; Dr. Theresa Lavallee, Chief Scientific and Development Officer; Sameer Goregaoker, Chief Commercial Officer; and Bryan McMichael, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that today’s call includes forward-looking statements regarding Coherus’ current expectations about future events. Actual results may vary significantly, and we undertake no duty to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Please see the press release that we issued today and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for more information on risks and uncertainties. And now I’ll turn the call over to Denny.

Dennis Lanfear: Well, thank you, Carrie, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon on our Q1 2026 quarterly call. Let me first give you a quick flyby of the company’s strategy to make sure we level set everyone, including our new investors. That strategy starts with LOQTORZI, our next-generation differentiated PD-1 inhibitor, which is both a revenue generator in the context of nasopharyngeal cancer and a revenue multiplier in the context of its combination with the novel molecules in our pipeline, such as casdozokitug, which we are exploring in liver cancer and tagmokitug, which we are exploring across a number of cancer indications, including gastrointestinal, head and neck and most recently, prostate cancer. We are executing a well-integrated financial, commercial and development strategy that maximizes LOQTORZI’s potential across both these dimensions while moving the pipeline forward efficiently.

NPC is large enough to cover the core cash burn at a projected $175 million a year at peak share, which does not include clinical trial costs, something which we view separately. Proprietary combinations of LOQTORZI with the pipeline asset translates to a 2-for-1 win. Label expansion for LOQTORZI included upon any approval. This will, of course, also translate to commercial synergies. This is how we can target $33 billion in market opportunity with our current efforts. The third leg of the strategic triad is a Treg depletion with tagmokitug across cancers and across nonproprietary combinations, which we view as a foundational Treg depletion platform and not merely another checkpoint adjunct. We further wish to explore Treg depletion as a potential new scaffold across cancer therapies.

Tregs broadly mediate immune response and cancer hijacks immune mediation to grow and proliferate. Many cancer therapies either result in or are limited by Tregs [indiscernible]. Our strategic objective then is to broadly deploy tagmokitug across cancers and nonproprietary therapies. Last quarter, we concluded the first such arrangement with J&J in prostate with pasritamig, a T-cell engager. We are currently exploring other partnering opportunities, which include not just T-cell engagers, but ADCs, radiotherapy and various biospecifics. Now as we have been saying for some time across all of our presentations, CCR8+ Treg depletion could be challenging for a lot of reasons. You need to have the right molecule and the right target. The right molecule translates to a number of things across selectivity, affinity, pharmacology and all the rest.

And the right target translates to immune context and the nuances of the biology. More recently, it’s become clear that the therapeutic promise of Treg depletion, notwithstanding some market participants are pausing or stopping the programs, while others are accelerating and expanding their programs. It’s essential for all of us to understand the nuances playing out. Accordingly, I’ve asked my Chief Scientific Officer, Theresa Lavallee, to spend a few minutes with you today and provide a lens through which to view the field’s evolution. I hope you find it useful. Also today, Rosh Dias, our Chief Medical Officer, will update you on the trials, the enrollment and the timing results. Sameer Goregaoker will review the Q1 revenues as well as provide an update on our commercial execution.

We continue to project that we will hit some $15 million per quarter sometime this year in 2026 and $30 million to $35 million per quarter sometime in 2027 and a market share peak of about $44 million per quarter sometime in 2028, which translates to about $175 million a year. After Sameer, Bryan McMichael will review for you our financials. And with that, now let me turn the call over to Rosh. Dr. Dias?

Rosh Dias: Thank you, Denny, and good afternoon, everyone. We continued to advance our highly focused clinical development program for our pipeline molecules, casdozokitug and tagmokitug through Q1, and we’re pleased with our progress in both molecules with accrual progressing well, and we are tracking to plan. Recently, we announced that we have completed our target accrual to our CATALYST-202 randomized study in first-line hepatocellular carcinoma. As a reminder, this is a 72-patient 3-arm study investigating 2 active doses of casdozo in combination with toripalimab and bevacizumab versus tori/bev alone and is designed to further characterize the efficacy and safety of this triplet as well as address FDA’s Project Optimus and contribution of components.

This study builds upon the previous data we presented last year at ASCO GI, where the combination of casdozo on top of the current standard of care of tori and bev demonstrated an overall response rate of 38% and a very encouraging complete response rate of 17%, both of which are greater than the historical data for atezo/bev alone of 30% and 7.7%, respectively. Patient accrual has gone well, and we anticipate having initial data available around the midyear time frame, as projected. Given what we observed in the prior Casdozo HCC trial, we expect the response data to mature over time after that, perhaps quarter-to-quarter. Moving to tagmokitug, our CCR8 cytolytic antibody. We’re currently running 2 active protocols in a targeted clinical program in tumor types where CCR8 intratumoral expression levels and the demonstration of activity previously in the CCR8 field provide rationale for investigation.

Our first protocol expands our approach in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and builds upon the late-line head and neck squamous cell data we presented at AACR 2025, where we demonstrated tumor immune cell remodeling to a more cytotoxic state with tagmo monotherapy and a partial response in the fourth-line patient with the tagmo-tori combination. Our current 40-patient expansion explores 2 active doses of tagmo in combination with tori, specifically in a second-line population. Accrual has progressed well, and we anticipate having data for 40 patients with a varying number of scans around the midyear frame. Our second protocol looks at multiple cohorts under an umbrella protocol as previously discussed. Cohort A investigates the tagmo-tori combination in 40 patients with second-line upper GI adenocarcinoma, which includes the gastric adeno, gastro-esophageal-junction adeno and esophageal adenocarcinoma in 2 dose levels of tagmo in combination with Tori.

This cohort is ongoing and continues to accrue well. We anticipate having initial data available midyear as projected. Cohort B, C and D are all active and accruing, and we remain on track to show initial data through the second half of this year as previously communicated. Cohort B and C of this protocol are in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, where the activity of Tori irrespective of PD-L1 status is particularly marked and forms the basis of tori’s approval in Europe as the only PD-1 approved across all PD-L1 levels in this tumor type. We’re investigating the tagmo-tori combination in second-line ESCC and in first-line ESCC, we’re exploring tagmo and tori in combination with chemotherapy as a safety cohort. Cohort D is exploring tagmo and tori in fourth-line plus microsatellite stable colorectal carcinoma without liver-mets, an area of increasing incidence, particularly in younger age groups and where there is a large unmet medical need as the current standard of care demonstrates very limited benefit.

Lastly, we’ve made excellent progress on the J&J pasritamig T-cell engager combination cohort of tagmo in prostate cancer, which will be the first of a new multi-cohort protocol, which is an approach that will enable us to add additional tagmo combination cohorts with other novel mechanisms under a single protocol efficiently. We continue to anticipate first patient in this fall. With that, I will hand it over to Theresa. Theresa?

Theresa Lavallee: Thank you, Rosh, and good afternoon. Today, I will cover 3 topics. Two aspects for tagmokitug, as the CCR8 competitive field is evolving, I will briefly review the importance of pharmacology and drug development. And then I will review our own tagmokitug pharmacology data to date. These data have supported the opportunity to expand tagmokitug development with J&J T-cell engager, pasritamig, a novel combination with CCR8 depleting antibodies and a potentially complementary anticancer therapy. We are excited this is our first nonproprietary combination to advance to clinical development. So, let me start with reviewing some of our analysis plans for the casdozokitug randomized CATALYST-202 study. Having the casdozokitug study fully enrolled now allows for the biomarker analysis to be done.

We have prioritized 2 aspects for data readouts, biomarkers associated with response and pharmacodynamic biomarkers to support contribution of effect for casdozokitug. The previous casdozokitug study provided a small data set suggesting that higher levels of IL-27 expression in tumors were associated with response. However, we had just 7 tumor samples, which is only 25% of the evaluable patients. Despite that, the analysis showed the tumors from the 4 patients with response had a higher level of IL-27 protein compared to the 3 progressive disease patients. In the current CATALYST-202 study, we have trained pretreatment tumor samples for almost all of the patients and expect to have IL-27 expression data when we read out the study. We also plan to perform circulating tumor DNA analysis.

Circulating tumor DNA is emerging as an important biomarker to evaluate tumor burden and treatment response. As tumor cells grow, they shed DNA into the patient’s blood. And many studies show a decrease in circulating tumor DNA levels following treatment correlates with better survival outcomes. Circulating tumor DNA already serves as a marker for minimal residual disease in hematological malignancies, and there is a large effort in the field to have the same for solid tumors. Given the delayed responses in HCC, we are interested in exploring this as an earlier surrogate marker for efficacy. Let me shift now to our cytolytic CCR8 antibody, tagmokitug, which we are investigating across a number of indications. As the competitive field is evolving with some teams pausing or stopping their programs, while others are advancing their programs into late-stage development, these disparate outcomes may be explained by the basics of drug development.

Early phase clinical studies must answer 2 questions: right drug, right target. To have the right drug requires four critical pharmacological elements: good PK and potency, showing you can deliver the drug at the needed exposure, and thirdly, dose-dependent effects on the intended target, showing the drug has hit the target and affected the target as related to dose and fourthly, an acceptable safety profile alone in combination. The majority of the CCR8 antibodies aim for a bind and kill MOA to deplete intratumoral Tregs. However, as we have consistently stated, the CCR8 receptor is a GPCR. It is well known GPCRs are challenging to make selective and potent antibodies against. This is now being reinforced with the CCR8 class. In April, at the AACR meeting, Amgen and Gilead presented on their CCR8 programs.

The data show mixed results, and these antibodies show a toxicity profile that is not seen by some other CCR8 programs. Amgen halted enrollment in their program after presenting data showing only 2 responses in 77 patients treated. About 1/3 of the patients were treated with a combination of AMZ355 and pembrolizumab. From the 12 with gastric cancer, one partial response was observed. These results contrast with the gastric cancer data from LaNova, now Sino Biopharma, where LM-108 in combination with PD-1 inhibitors demonstrated a 36% overall response rate. Gilead, in contrast, showed antitumor activity, including single-agent activity in tumor types known to have a high degree of CCR8+ Tregs. Gilead is now advancing their denikitug into Phase II development in multiple studies, and we await additional data sets.

In summary, it would seem that many CCR8 programs that are stopping are doing so due to drug-like properties falling short and failing the right drug criteria. In contrast, tagmokitug has shown good pharmacology and has met all the criteria for right drug, excellent linear dose and dose-dependent PK, potency for both binding and killing the target, dose-dependent immune effects and acceptable safety profile, both with and without toripalimab. With the right drug under investigation, we have now turned our attention to answering the question of hitting the right target. As you have seen, we are aggressively pursuing data to support right combinations for the best efficacy across cancers, lines of therapy and immune context. We are evaluating tagmokitug in combination with either toripalimab, a PD-1 inhibitor or pasritamig, a T-cell engager.

We plan to evaluate tagmokitug in other combination where Tregs are associated with therapy resistance such as ADCs or radiotherapy. We believe this will inform our development broadly across anticancer therapies on the best way to overcome Treg-driven resistance in cancer patients. With that, I will turn the call over to our Chief Commercial Officer. Sameer?

Sameer Goregaoker: Thank you, Theresa, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, let me offer you some color on our Q1 results, what we saw with respect to demand signals and our focus going forward to drive growth. In Q1 2026, LOQTORZI net sales were up 61% versus Q1 2025. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, net sales were $11.8 million versus $12.4 million in Q4 ’25. This result was consistent with typical first quarter seasonal trends, but this year, it was impacted by severe weather across large parts of the country as others have also seen. To better understand this year’s seasonal impact, we assessed a basket of 85 oncology products. We found an average of 5% decline from Q4 to Q1 over the past 4 years. However, in 2026, the decline for this basket was more pronounced at 10%, likely driven by the severe winter storms that hit most of the country.

With this seasonal impact now behind us, we expect LOQTORZI revenue growth to build through the remainder of 2026, given a closer analysis of our growth drivers. We are pleased to report that LOQTORZI new starts reached an all-time high in Q1. This was driven by: one, broader prescribing in new accounts; and two, deeper use through repeat ordering in existing accounts. Overall, breadth and depth of ordering accounts increased 21% and treatment duration continues to increase quarter-over-quarter. Looking ahead, we see 2 clear levers to drive continued demand growth. First, we’re focusing on reducing chemo-only use, particularly in the community setting through continued education on NCCN guidelines and our Phase III data, including the 6-year long-term survival benefit analysis.

Secondly, we are working to curb off-label PD-1 use in NPC that is mainly driven by guideline and indication misperceptions. On both fronts, our efforts reinforce LOQTORZI’s position as the only approved and available immune therapy in NPC, offering a superior survival benefit over chemotherapy alone. We are moving this plan forward, utilizing targeted investments to enhance our execution. Importantly, new claims data purchases have expanded our visibility into chemo-only and off-label I-O use across up to 70% of addressable patients. This expanded visibility is being incorporated into patient alerts to enable earlier, more precise field targeting and multichannel execution. Our inside sales team is now fully operational, significantly expanding our reach into the community setting, a key growth driver.

We’re also scaling digital education through KOL video programs, targeted EMR initiatives and pilots on emerging HCC AI platforms. These AI platforms are seeing rapid growth — rapid adoption by oncologists and are increasingly used to drive treatment decisions. Regarding our guidance, we continue to expect 10% to 15% demand growth per quarter averaged across 2026 quarters. Our focus will continue to be on driving broader and deeper adoption across the community and academic settings, supported by growing duration of treatment. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Bryan McMichael, our Chief Financial Officer.

Bryan McMichael: Thank you, Sameer, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll start with notable financial and operational updates, then run through the company’s financial position at the end of the quarter and results for Q1 2026. The key financial event this quarter was the follow-on equity offering, which we mentioned on last earnings call. As an update, total net proceeds were $54 million and include the full exercise of the underwriters’ overallotment option. These funds have strengthened our liquidity position and are supporting the new tagmokitug CRC and prostate studies, enhanced investments in LOQTORZI commercialization capabilities to reach revenue targets faster and general corporate purposes. Regarding sales, in addition to the color on LOQTORZI net revenues provided by Sameer, I will add that we expect to provide full year 2026 revenue guidance on the earnings call in August, as indicated on our last call.

Let me turn to operating expenses. R&D expenses from continuing operations for Q1 2026 were $21.5 million, down from $24.4 million in the first quarter of the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to savings from reduced headcount and infrastructure costs, reflecting tight spending discipline, partially offset by increased investments in the pipeline. SG&A expenses from continuing operations were $23.1 million in the first quarter, down from $26 million in Q1 2025. The decrease reflects continued savings from Coherus’ complete exit from the biosimilar business, which, as we talked to you today, was completed more than 1 year ago. Now turning to the balance sheet. Total cash, cash equivalents and investments at the end of the quarter was $167 million, down slightly from $172.1 million at year-end.

Given the recent raise in our financial plans, we believe we are sufficiently funded through key data readouts in 2026 and 2027. With that, I’ll hand the call back over to Denny.

Dennis Lanfear: Thank you, Bryan. Operator, we’re ready to go to the questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our first question and the first question comes from the line of Jay Olson from Oppenheimer.

Jay Olson: On LOQTORZI, can you talk about the dynamics driving the average duration of treatment among existing patients, which continues to grow? Is the growing duration driven by first-line patients? And then related to that, congrats on the new patient starts in the first quarter. Can you maybe share some color on how the patients split between first and second line? And where should we eventually expect a percentage of patients on LOQTORZI in the first-line setting? And then if I could, I have a follow-up on tagmo, please.

Dennis Lanfear: Thank you, Jay. I’ll let Sameer unpack that for you. Sameer, would you like to address Jay’s question about the treatment duration and so on?

Sameer Goregaoker: Thank you, Jay. Thanks for the question. And you had a couple of points to that question. So just to make sure I got your question correctly. The first question was the average duration of treatment and how that split between new and existing patients. Is that correct, Jay?

Jay Olson: Yes. And then — yes.

Sameer Goregaoker: Yes. So in terms of the duration of treatment, what I can say is our duration of treatment depends on the type of patients. We have 2 types of patients. One type of patient is the first-line locally advanced and first-line metastatic patients. And the second type of patient is a monotherapy patient, which is the later-line metastatic patients. We — in the clinical trials in the real world, we’re seeing higher duration of therapy for the first-line patients than the second-line monotherapy patients. In terms of new and existing patients, I think it’s the same dynamic playing out for both the new and existing patients. So across the board, we’re seeing that the duration continues to grow as we get further away from launch and eventually, hopefully, we’ll get close to the clinical trial duration.

And the next question was about new patient starts in first line and second line. So currently, we’re seeing about 75% to 80% of our patients are coming from the metastatic setting, both the frontline metastatic setting and the second-line metastatic setting and a smaller percent of patients coming from the locally advanced recurrent setting. And that’s in line with physicians initially at launch, putting patients in the later line patients and then moving the use of therapy to an earlier line setting. As we get further into the launch, we would expect that we get more locally advanced recurrent patients. And last thing I’ll say is we also now have visibility into where these patients are. We’ve purchased a lot of claims data. So we know which physicians are managing these locally advanced recurrent patients, and we’re going after those accounts and physicians to educate them on LOQTORZI.

Jay Olson: That was super helpful and extremely comprehensive. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Just on tagmo, given that the second-line head and neck and gastric cancer readout is expected midyear, could you just talk about what investors should expect to learn from those 2 updates? And will you be providing next steps in the clinical development for those 2 programs?

Dennis Lanfear: Rosh, do you want to take that one about the data? And then Theresa, you can take next steps.

Rosh Dias: Yes. Thank you, Jay, for the question. So in terms of data readouts, yes, so we anticipate initial data for the second-line head and neck and the second-line upper GI adeno around the midyear time frame. A couple of things I’ll say. First of all, we anticipate at least 50% of the patients to be reported. As you think about the data and timing, there are probably 2 key determinants, right? One is the number of patients. Number two is the number of scans that may be needed to show activity. So again, for the number of patients, I anticipate more than 50% or more of patients. The — in terms of the numbers of scans, that’s a little bit more variable. We’ll be looking at overall response rate. We’ll be looking at clinical benefit rate. We’ll be looking at safety, but duration will take a little bit longer to really mature. And as you know, the real benefit of IO has been in extending that tail. So I’d look out for those key metrics to start with.

Theresa Lavallee: To add to that, Jay, thanks because we’re super excited to think about next steps. And so as we look at the data, particularly with durability, I mean, ORR is nice. It’s 30% or greater tumor shrinkage, durability is what matters because the regulatory endpoints are survival. So thinking about, is there sufficient efficacy to support favorable regulatory strategies, which all of these studies are designed if the signal is there to have sufficient patients to do that. Additionally, is there a patient population or a way of enriching patients is another output that we’re really looking at for what’s the immune context. And is there a way then to advance into a study to look more towards later-stage development. So we’ll be looking for both of those outputs and directions from the studies as they read out.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Paul Jeng from Guggenheim.

Paul Jeng: For tagmo, I have a follow-up question on the head and neck cancer data that you’ll be reporting, mostly on patient demographics. Can you speak to what proportion of patients you would expect to be PD-1 experienced? And do you plan to break out responses by HPV status? And then how do you think about the…

Dennis Lanfear: Yes. Paul, Paul, let’s stop there and just do one question. Let’s answer that, and then we can follow on. Theresa, Rosh, do you want to take that?

Rosh Dias: Yes, I can take that. So thanks, Paul, for the question. So yes, all of the patients in the second-line head and neck study will be PD-1 or PD-L1 experienced. And yes, one of the key stratification factors is the HCV status.

Paul Jeng: I did. Yes. So I just wanted to ask about how you’re thinking about the bar for response rates in light of what some of the investigational EGFRs and even ADCs have shown in the setting.

Rosh Dias: Yes, I can take that one as well. So first of all, the current standard of care is pretty dismal in terms of the overall response rate. It is cetuximab and that overall response rate tends to be in the 13% to 15% ORR range. You’re absolutely right. We do see the environment changing and evolving with the EGFRs. And a couple of points I’ll mention. So first of all, there is positive data in the first line as well as the second-line setting, which I think better positions these agents in the first-line setting. And secondly, I think the majority of the benefit is really driven by HPV negative status. And so I think that also leaves the HPV positive patients, which accounts for roughly about 40% of subjects overall pretty wide open. So I think that’s the way we kind of look at the current benchmarks and the evolving data sets.

Dennis Lanfear: Theresa, additional comments?

Theresa Lavallee: Yes. And we’re actively watching it, obviously, with announcements from the Nectin ADC data that’s super exciting, shows a rapid development path in the head and neck space. data coming out really showing a non-EGFR approach in the frontline setting shows room and interest for novel agents. What we find particularly interesting about this mechanism, obviously, our initial output is with PD-1 and tagmo. And to your question, the first study is only asking, can we rescue PD-1 resistance since they’re all PD-1 failures. Moving into combination with any and all of these agents could make a lot of sense. So in addition to streamlining our development with a way to advance the later stage, we also see ways to broaden and improve on durability of a lot of these responses, particularly with ADCs as we do combinations.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Cheng from JPMorgan.

Lut Ming Cheng: Maybe just first on LOQTORZI. Can you provide a little bit more about this weather impact to the top line here? Are patients not able to get another round of LOQTORZI? Is there access issue because of weather? And just on top of that, how do we reconcile that dynamic with the record new patient starts that you’re seeing this quarter? And we have a follow-up.

Dennis Lanfear: Okay. Thanks, Brian. Sameer, do you want to take that?

Sameer Goregaoker: Yes. Thank you, Brian, for the question. So we’re now into the third year of our launch. So we’re getting a better sense of the seasonality patterns. We saw some seasonality last year. It was kind of early to understand that. So this year, again, we saw the seasonality. And that’s why we dug into an analysis of what’s really happening in the oncology setting, and we took a basket of 85 oncology molecules. And really interestingly, for the last 4 years, this basket, we saw a very consistent 5% decline from Q4 to Q1. And what we didn’t expect is a larger magnitude of decline in 2026, where we saw a 10% decline for that basket from Q4 to Q1. So it’s like as we expected, it’s a pretty consistent decline pattern in Q1 and then most products go back to growth in Q2.

So we’re following a similar pattern it looks like, right? That being said, in terms of reconciling the new patients and the existing patients, so we believe what happened is we had, I think, about 2 major winter storms, which affected about 2 to 3 weeks throughout the first quarter. And I think what happened is a lot of patients who are on either 3-week cycles or 2-week cycles missed their cycles. And as a result, we lost that entire cycle for a big chunk of patients, and they reset their cycle clock. So we lost these individual cycles for a chunk of patients. That is totally separate from the new patient starts, right? Because new patients are really important for us to drive future growth. And we’re pretty excited that we saw robust new patient growth, which is going to become the existing patients for future quarters.

So those are the 2 dynamics that play.

Dennis Lanfear: The other point that I’d say, Brian, is I think Q4 to Q1 last year, we went down, I think, about 3%. So this year, I think it’s like 5%. So given the storms, it’s pretty much in line. But also given the starts, I think that we should go back on the growth curve here directly this quarter. Did you have a follow-up question, Brian?

Lut Ming Cheng: Yes, we do. Maybe just on the 202 study, Theresa, you talked about how the importance of circulating tumor DNA and also IL-27 expression in the upcoming data in terms of figuring out the association of those expressions to tumor reduction. Do you have a sense based on preclinical model, do you have a sense of how correlated they are in terms of the magnitude of IL-27 reduction to tumor reduction in preclinical model?

Dennis Lanfear: TThanks, Brian.

Theresa Lavallee: Yes. the preclinical models don’t have a good readout there. I mean what we have seen in the mouse is that it’s very tissue specific. So that the tumors have to be in the lung or the liver. And given the amount of IL-27 that’s expressed there, that comes through. And the 2 things that we’re really looking for, I think, just to set expectations for the midyear readout, we’ve talked about this at several times is that it’s an initial readout. The first readout in the CATALYST-201, the previously atezo/bev study, the overall response rate was only 27%. But a lot of patients were on study, and we saw tumor shrinkage deepening. And that’s where we think that the initial readout with trends in circulating tumor DNA as well as looking at are there differences in the outcomes based on IL-27 levels will really give us a look see about the probability of it being a positive study as the data mature.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Colleen Kusy from Baird.

Nick Quartapella: It’s Nick on for Colleen. I just had a quick one on the casdozo program. So between atezo/bev and tori/bev as the backbone in combination there, do you expect to see any differences in the efficacy or safety profile?

Rosh Dias: Yes. Thanks, Nick, for the question. So I think you’ll recall that we talked about HEPATORCH, which is the study of toripalimab and bev versus sorafenib. And that really showed very similar, if not slightly higher overall survival compared to atezo/bev, obviously, not a head-to-head. So I think we have confidence in that. And the other thing I’ll say is that the ADA rate for atezo tends to be a lot higher than for toripalimab. So I think those 2 points really give us some confidence that the tori/bev is a good backbone on which to add casdozokitug.

Theresa Lavallee: And the safety profile has been quite good. That’s actually one of the standouts, particularly in this disease in the frontline HCC setting. And Casdozo across the board really hasn’t added any additional or new toxicities to any treatment, whether it be atezo, whether it be tori, whether it be pembro that has been evaluated to date.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Nedelcovych from TD Cowen.

Michael Nedelcovych: I have 2. I’ll start with my first on tagmokitug. Theresa, you alluded to this in your remarks, but I believe LaNova has initiated a Phase III trial for its CCR8 antibody. Can you elaborate a bit on your previous remarks? How important is this development from the point of view, both of validating the mechanism, but also in terms of what it means for the competitive landscape? And to the extent that you can speak to specific similarities or differences between their molecule and approach in tagmokitug, that would be super helpful.

Dennis Lanfear: Thanks for that, Mike. Theresa?

Theresa Lavallee: Yes, I love this question. And I think this is really important because we see programs advancing and programs stopping. Sino Biopharma with LM-108, or filled keybart has started 2 Phase IIIs. In fact, last week, they announced dosing the first patient in the gastric cancer Phase III, they also have an MSI-high CRC study as a pivotal study ongoing. So they really have confidence and doubling down on this program and the molecule, and they also will be reporting at ESMO this year. Additionally, we see players like Gilead opening 2 Phase II randomized study, gastric cancer, colorectal study, AbbVie advancing in colorectal cancer and BMS continuing to add patients to their study. So we think that the differences from the programs that are being parked or the negative data that the lack of activity that Amgen showed down to pharmacology.

So we’re super excited about seeing programs advancing and seeing the properties of our molecule really making it exciting to now look at the data readouts later this year.

Dennis Lanfear: Mike, did you have a follow-on question for us?

Michael Nedelcovych: I have another on LOQTORZI, if that’s okay.

Dennis Lanfear: Sure.

Michael Nedelcovych: I’m just curious, given that you now have a better sense of seasonality, do you still think LOQTORZI can get to that roughly $30 million to $35 million in quarterly sales in 2027? Or might it take a bit longer than that?

Dennis Lanfear: We are confident in doing so. In my prepared remarks, I reiterated guidance on 3 key issues with respect to the revenues. First being reaching $15 million per quarter sometime this year in ’26. second, reaching $30 million to $35 million per quarter sometime in ’27 and then thirdly, reaching what would be an annualized $175 million per year, which is about $44 million a quarter sometime in 2028. And I think that our data purchases and our knowledge now of the therapeutic area gives us confidence we’ll be able to do that.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our next question, and the question comes from Douglas Tsao from H.C. Wainwright.

Douglas Tsao: Sorry, can you hear me? Can you hear me… Sorry about that. I had you on mute. I guess just maybe on the LOQTORZI issue in terms of the impact on storms, was this something that affected largely new patient starts? Or was it just simply a function of patients ongoing therapy? And should we think of this as just sort of purely deferred revenue that eventually should catch up for the rest of the year?

Dennis Lanfear: Sameer, do you want to take that one first?

Sameer Goregaoker: I’ll take a shot at that. Thank you, Doug, for the question. So I think the first part of that question is it did affect are — I believe it affected our existing patients. New patients, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we had more new accounts either starting or restarting new patients than we had in the past. So our new patient growth seems robust. I believe what happened is the existing patients because of seasonality, insurance changes plus the weather, there were some hiccups in ongoing treatment. So that’s where we lost some cycles. I don’t think we’re going to get those cycles back because if you’re in a 3-week cycle and you miss your cycle this week, you basically go back in a new 3-week cycle, so that one cycle is lost basically forever.

But again, let me just kind of go back to what we said earlier, right? So that’s Q1, right? So we’re pretty excited about the new patient starts continuing on track and our ability to drive demand growth for the rest of this year.

Douglas Tsao: Can I jump to a follow-up, Denny?

Dennis Lanfear: Sure.

Douglas Tsao: So just maybe on tagmo, obviously, we have a significant number of readouts through beginning in the middle part of the year and into the second half of the year. I guess just when you think about where you are from a balance sheet, Denny, are you able to — and I think you would certainly plan to succeed or assume that you’re going to succeed with these studies. Do you think that you’re in a position to continue to sort of prosecute all these opportunities? Or is there some prioritization that might need to happen?

Dennis Lanfear: I would direct you back to my prepared remarks at the beginning of the call. But we are certainly funded through the ’26 and all the ’27 turning over of all the data cards. One thing that we do is if we have an unfunded clinical trial or we have something that we believe is worthwhile, we take it to our investors. And currently, all of our clinical trials are funded. We just raised, as you know, and that really addressed the issues of the CRC study, which were not funded as well as the prostate study with J&J, both of which I think you’d agree are very worthwhile. So that’s pretty much our approach to it. We don’t foresee any additional trials right now. I think that we’ve done a very good job with a very broad development program across tagmokitug and a very highly focused program with respect to casdozokitug. So I think we’re set.

Operator: There seems to be no further questions. I would like to hand back for closing remarks.

Dennis Lanfear: Thank you, Heidi, and thank you all for joining us today in our Q1 2026 call. We look forward to seeing you again on our August call, which will be very exciting. In the interim, we’ll see you at Jefferies where we’ll be presenting, and we’ll also be at ASCO. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.