Nuvation Bio Inc. (NYSE:NUVB) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Nuvation Bio Inc. (NYSE:NUVB) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript March 3, 2026

Operator: Hello, and welcome to Nuvation Bio’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Financial Results and Corporate Update Call. Today’s call is being recorded, and a replay will be available. [Operator Instructions] Now I’d like to turn the call over to JR DeVita, Executive Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Nuvation Bio. Please go ahead.

Robert DeVita: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Nuvation Bio Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Earlier today, we released financial results for the quarter and year ending December 31, 2025, and provided a business update. The press release is available on the Investors section of our website at nuvationbio.com and a recording of this conference call will also be available on our website following its completion. I’d like to remind you that today’s call includes forward-looking statements, including statements about the therapeutic and commercial potential of IBTROZI and safusidenib, the components of our anticipated product revenue, expected milestone payments and our cash runway.

Because such statements deal with future events and are subject to many risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. For a full discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please review our annual report on Form 10-K, which we filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. Joining me on today’s call are our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. David Hung; our Chief Commercial Officer, Colleen Sjogren, and our Chief Financial Officer, Philippe Sauvage. David will provide an overview of our key achievements in 2025 and other business updates, Colleen will provide details on the commercial launch of IBTROZI and Philippe will discuss our financial, partnering and operating updates.

David will then conclude with closing remarks. Now I’ll turn the call over to Dr. David Hung. David?

David Hung: Thanks, JR. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. 2025 was a pivotal year for Nuvation Bio, and I’m pleased to discuss our full year and fourth quarter results with you today. Our most significant achievement occurred on June 11 with the full U.S. FDA approval of our first therapy IBTROZI, indicated to treat people living with advanced ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC. Since then, we’ve been working tirelessly to bring IBTROZI to patients with this aggressive disease. And based on the number of patients who have started our therapy, and the confidence we have in this differentiated profile, we believe that IBTROZI is becoming the new standard of care for ROS1-positive NSCLC. By the end of 2025, 432 new patients started IBTROZI, including 216 in the fourth quarter.

For IQVIA data, patients are being prescribed IBTROZI at a rate that is approximately 6x faster than the 2 prior ROS1 TKI launches over their first 2 full quarters following approval. Our fourth quarter patient starts also reflect an increase the 204 new patient starts in the third quarter during the time of year that may be impacted by seasonal factors. We continue to see a steady cadence of new patient starts in the first 2 months of 2026 from those who have filled a TKI, those currently on a TKI, who have switched to IBTROZI, and those naive to therapy. This broad patient mix further highlights the strength of our launch and collective belief in our medicine. Feedback from key opinion leaders, daily interactions with health care providers and results from our market research have consistently been overwhelmingly positive.

Since launch, we’ve learned that IBTROZI’s efficacy profile resonates strongly with physicians and equally important, its safety profile, especially limited CNS toxicity may allow earlier line patients to remain on therapy for years. An essential factor in a space for long-term duration therapy is paramount. As I mentioned, and consistent with this, we continue to see switches to IBTROZI from all 3 of the other therapies approved for ROS1 positive lung cancer. The reasons for these switches include disease progression, tolerability challenges, brain penetrants and physician confidence in the strength of IBTROZI’s clinical data, particularly in the durability of response. I’m thrilled with how our team has executed despite the fact that rare disease launches always provide a variety of challenges.

Their efforts have resulted in significant impact and most importantly, patients, but also on how providers choose to treat this disease. Colleen and Philippe will provide more detail on launch dynamics and net product revenue later in the call. Looking ahead, we are focusing on increasing our prescriber base and identifying more newly diagnosed first-line patients to be treated with IBTROZI. We believe that treating these patients will significantly increase the collective time our active patient population stays on therapy while we continue to simultaneously treat patients in the later line setting, who are in urgent need of our medicines. We also plan to present additional long-term IBTROZI data at multiple medical conferences in 2026. As a reminder, on our prior earnings call, we reported that as of August 2025, IBTROZI’s median duration of response has now reached 50 months in a pooled analysis of TKI-naive patients in the TRUST-I and TRUST-II pivotal studies, population of which IBTROZI has previously shown an 89% confirmed overall response rate or ORR.

We believe these long-term IBTROZI data represent the greatest patient benefit seen to date in ROS1 positive NSCLC. And unlike ongoing studies of other ROS1 TKIs, our pivotal study did not exclude patients with other concomitant oncogenic mutations making the results with IBTROZI, we believe, representative and applicable to real-world patients. We look forward to providing more clinical analyses from the August 2025 data cutoff in the first half of this year. Our scientific updates in 2026 may also further characterize IBTROZI’s unique balance of activity against 2 important targets: ROS1 and TRKb. IBTROZI is 11 to 20-fold more selective for ROS1 and over TRKb and remains strikingly potent against ROS1 with picomolar level inhibitory activity.

But importantly, IBTROZI also has measured inhibitory activity against TRKb. What is starting to emerge with improved scientific understanding is that the degree to which a lung cancer therapy inhibits TRKb, in addition to its primary oncogenic driver, may play a significant role in not only controlling the growth of the primary tumor, but may also inhibit the ability of that primary tumor to metastasize and grow in distant sites, particularly in the brain. Remember that ROS1-positive lung cancer has a particularly high propensity to spread to the brain, as 36% of newly diagnosed patients present with brain metastases. And in an additional 50% of cases, the first site of disease progression will be in the brain. We believe the ability to control and even prevent brain metastases in ROS1 positive lung cancer may be 1 of the most important determinants of long-term survival and will be reflected in a therapy’s durability of benefit.

TRKb is an oncogene, meaning that it drives cancer growth and metastasis and the natural ligand for the TRKb receptor is BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, as the name implies, this factor is expressed at high levels in the brain and can fuel the growth of cancer cells via the TRKb pathway if that pathway is not inhibited sufficiently. However, too much inhibition has been shown to lead to neurological side effects. IBTROZI is far more potent against ROS1 and TRKb, about 20-fold, which may explain why it has such a high response rate and durability in ROS1-driven lung cancer. And yet, while IBTROZI does have adequate activity against TRKb, this inhibition is measured enough that its dizziness rate is similar to that of crizotinib, a drug that doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier.

In a recent commentary in publishing the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, renowned thoracic oncologists, Dr. Ross Camidge, Dr. William Phillips, Dr. Rafael Nemanov and Dr. Diana Sitelli, hypothesized that this selectivity could make IBTROZI the best tolerated next-generation ROS1 inhibitor. And we believe IBTROZI’s intentional, but well-tolerated TRKb inhibition may contribute meaningfully to intracranial disease control and ultimately survival without introducing the significant CNS toxicity that has limited other agents, to the point Dr. Camidge and team emphasized in their analysis. Separately, published data have linked uninhibited TRKb signaling to larger tumor burden, higher stage disease, increased risk of CNS metastases and poor outcomes across multiple solid tumors, including lung cancer.

In our view, IBTROZI strikes a particularly effective balance, deep durable inhibition of ROS1, paired with measured TRKb activity that potentially supports CNS disease control while preserving tolerability. Interestingly, the only other approved TKI to demonstrate longer durability in TKI-naive patients than IBTROZI is lorlatinib in ALK-positive NSCLC, which showed a median progression-free survival, or PFS, of over 5 years in the CROWN study. Lorlatinib has even greater TRKb inhibition than IBTROZI which we believe is likely related to lorlatinib’s high rate of CNS events like mood disorders. However, given the high propensity for CNS involvement in ALK-positive disease, Dr. Camidge speculates that it is lorlatinib significant TRKb inhibition that may account for its high intracranial response rate in 5-year duration of response.

We do not view the shared prolonged durability of lorlatinib and IBTROZI as coincidental. Taken together, we believe that IBTROZI’s ability to strongly suppress ROS1 while modulating TRKb in a tolerable way could help explain durability intracranial activity and safety profile we continue to observe as real-world use increases. We also continue to envision and develop IBTROZI for a broader ROS1 positive lung cancer population. Based on our label, IBTROZI has been prescribed to a significant number of patients in the advanced setting across lines of therapy. And the next step for us is to move to earlier stage of lung cancer. As previously shared, we have dosed the first patient in TRUST-IV, a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase III study evaluating taletrectinib as an adjuvant therapy for patients with resected ROS1-positive, early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

Adjuvant therapy is fundamentally different from treatment in advanced disease and is an area we targeted for study only after garnering support for multiple lung cancer KOLs. These patients have undergone surgery, often feel healthy and are understandably unwilling to remain on our therapy that is difficult to tolerate or interferes with daily life. As a result, only a drug with a manageable and highly tolerable safety profile can realistically be developed in this study. We believe it is particularly meaningful that IBTROZI is the only ROS1 inhibitor currently being studied in the adjuvant setting, and we view this as a further testament to its safety and tolerability profile. Across our clinical database of 337 patients with advanced ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer, only 1 patient discontinued treatment due to any of the 6 most common adverse events, including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, dizziness or liver enzyme elevations.

While this does not summarize all adverse events detailed in our prescribing information, this level of tolerability for our most prevalent adverse events is critical when considering use immediately following surgery and why we believe IBTROZI may provide benefit in the adjuvant setting. Lastly, we not only aim to bring IBTROZI to patients across the ROS1 positive disease spectrum, but also the patients and providers around the world. Last year, we received approval for IBTROZI in China and our partners at Innovent Biologics and in Japan with our partners at Nippon Kayaku. In January, we were thrilled to announce a strategic partnership with Eisai to develop IBTROZI in Europe and other ex-U.S. territories outside China and Japan. We are working diligently with Eisai to submit IBTROZI for approval in Europe in the first half of this year.

In short, we believe our continued launch performance, the latest updates reconfirming IBTROZI’s efficacy and tolerability profile and additional development, regulatory and commercial achievements, all show why we believe IBTROZI is becoming the standard of care for ROS1-positive lung cancer. We also made exciting progress developing our second program, safusidenib. Safusidenib is an inhibitor of mutant IDH1 being developed for IDH1 mutant glioma, a devastating type of brain cancer. Importantly, not only are there very few treatment options available for this disease, but these younger patients are typically diagnosed between the ages of 38 and 45. Clearly, there is an opportunity to make an impact for these patients and their families. IDH1-mutant glioma described using 2 types of terminology, grade and tumor classification.

A grade of a glioma indicates the level of risk while the classification describes certain biological features of the tumor. Malignant IDH1 mutant tumors can be defined using grades 2, 3 and 4, and these tumors can be classified as an oligodendroglioma or an astrocytoma. Both descriptors together indicate the level of risk, aggressiveness of disease and estimated time patients may live with their disease. To simplify this, we describe both grade 2 oligodendroglioma and astrocytoma as low-grade IDH1-mutant glioma, while high-grade IDH1-mutant gliomas consists of grade 3 oligodendroglioma, grade 3 astrocytoma and grade 4 astrocytoma. Each year, there are approximately 2,400 new cases of IDH1-mutant glioma in the U.S., split almost evenly between the low-grade and high-grade population.

The key difference is that based on published median overall survival data, patients with low-grade IDH1-mutant glioma live approximately 12 to 20 years, while high-grade patients live on average approximately 2 to 12 years. The only targeted treatment option available for patients with IDH1-mutant glioma is vorasidenib, which was approved by the U.S. FDA in August 2024, where only patients with grade 2 oligodendroglioma and grade 2 astrocytoma are the low-grade population. In this pivotal INDIGO study, which included 168 Grade 2 patients with non-enhancing or low-risk disease in the active study arm, vorasidenib demonstrated a median PFS of 27.7 months, a 41% progression rate at 24 months and an ORR of 11%. In a separate Phase I study of 30 patients, vorasidenib showed a confirmed ORR of 0% in a high-grade enhancing population, which is not included in its approved label.

In November, results from our Phase II study of safusidenib for low-grade IDH1-mutant glioma were published in neuro-oncology. This patient population was treated with safusidenib following surgery and prior to radiation or chemotherapy. The same types of prior treatment patients received in the INDIGO study. In this study of 27 patients, safusidenib demonstrated a median PFS have not reached a 12% progression rate at 24 months and a confirmed ORR of 44%. As a reminder, in a Phase I study of 35 patients, safusidenib also showed a 17% confirmed ORR including 2 complete responses that lasted multiple years in a high-grade enhancing population. As we’ve discussed previously, vorasidenib is already approaching a $1 billion U.S. net revenue run rate, less than 2 years after its approval.

This rapid commercial uptake underscores both the unmet need and the willingness of physicians to adopt targeted therapies in this setting. While we acknowledge the inherent complexity and limitations of cross-trial comparisons due to differences in study design, patient populations, endpoints and sample size, recently published data in neuro-oncology and data from our Phase I study highlights the encouraging clinical profile of safusidenib and its potential to address significant unmet need in this patient population. In parallel, we continue to learn more about safusidenib’s safety profile. While the drug is generally well tolerated, we observed a distinct set of dermatological related adverse events, including alopecia, arthralgia, and skin hyperpigmentation.

We believe the presence of these events may be due to a different pharmacological profile of safusidenib, and we continue to investigate if safusidenib may inhibit targets other than IDH1. Importantly, the drug-related discontinuation rate in the Phase II study, which was conducted at the pivotal 250-milligram twice-a-day dose remains low at approximately 8%. The patients, who had discontinued therapy, were able to recover with interruption and appropriate management. Based on data generated to date, we announced in February that we started enrolling our pivotal Phase III study called SIGMA. This global randomized study is evaluating the efficacy and safety of safusidenib versus placebo for the maintenance treatment of high-risk and high-grade IDH1 mutant glioma following standard of care.

Specifically, the study population includes 300 patients with grade 2 or grade 3 astrocytoma, who show certain high-risk features in all patients with grade 4 astrocytoma. As an important reminder, these patients have no FDA-approved targeted therapy options. Considering the high unmet need and the exciting profile of safusidenib, we are optimistic about the speed of recruitment in this trial. Due to the sizable population being enrolled to support approval, and the use of PFS as the primary endpoint, we expect this study will read out in 2029. Importantly, we recently announced the initiation of a second nonpivotal cohort evaluating safusidenib in patients with grade 3 oligodendroglioma, a patient population that is considered to be within the lower risk end of the high-grade glioma spectrum.

This grade 3 oligodendroglioma study will enroll approximately 40 patients with measurable disease, including patients with residual disease following surgery for those with recurrent disease and will evaluate ORR as the primary end point. Given that we have 31 sites activated in the U.S. already, we estimate that we will be able to provide a full study readout in 2027. Importantly, if we see significant objective response in this study, we will meet with the FDA to discuss the results and potential options for further development, aiming towards an accelerated approval pathway. Patients with grade 3 oligodendroglioma frequently seek alternatives through the cumulative toxicities associated with prolonged radiation and chemotherapy given the relatively young age at diagnosis and median life expectancy of 12 to 14 years.

Yet, there are currently no approved targeted therapies for this group either. While there are approximately 400 new grade 3 oligodendroglioma cases diagnosed annually in the U.S., we believe this represents a much larger prevalent population of several thousand patients, who are underserved today and could meaningfully benefit from an effective, well-tolerated targeted therapy. We view safusidenib as an ideal complement to IBTROZI as we now have an approved therapy and a late-stage program that both address a clear unmet need for patients. We look forward to generating updates from our evaluation of safusidenib as quickly as possible. Lastly, our drug-drug conjugate or DDC platform represents a novel modality in targeted cancer therapy designed to conjugate 2 small molecules, a targeting agent and a warhead.

While we discontinued development of our first DDC NUV-1511 in the fourth quarter, we were able to gather valuable insights into DDC development and are already applying these learnings to new preclinical candidates in our pipeline. We hope to have updates on the next phase of our DDC program by year-end. We remain confident in our capabilities to successfully execute our program goals, build lasting value and most importantly, serve patients. With that, I’ll turn it over to Colleen to provide more color on the launch of IBTROZI.

Colleen Sjogren: Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. I’m excited to report that the launches of IBTROZI continues to build what we believe is market defining momentum in a rare disease indication. From our approval in June through the end of 2025, we treated 432 new patients with IBTROZI, which represents a rate that is 6x faster than the 2 most recent TKI launches in ROS1-positive lung cancer. As David mentioned, we continue to see patient starts from 3 distinct populations. Patients who have failed prior ROS1 TKI switches from patients currently treated with ROS1 TKI and newly diagnosed patients who are TKI naive. This momentum underscores that a significant medical need in ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer still exists.

And it is clear to us that the efforts of our incredible team our tailored strategy and IBTROZI’s compelling efficacy and safety profile are well positioned to address this need. By the end of the year, we had engaged all top-tier target accounts and our field-facing interactions reinforce that physicians are quickly gaining comfort prescribing IBTROZI for their patients. Prescriptions have been written in 100% of our 47 sales territories by multiple repeat prescribers and per IQVIA data, we are showing significant growth in market share of new patients treated with a ROS1 TKI. On the market access front, payer engagement continues to be constructive and effective. At this point in our launch, we have achieved broad coverage to label for patients across the country.

Finally, our patient support program, Innovation Connect continues to help eligible patients receive support and access to IBTROZI, while reimbursement is secured. Now I’d like to walk you through some of the key dynamics of our launch to further characterize, where we are today and what lies ahead. As we’ve noted, IBTROZI is being prescribed across both TKI-naive and TKI-pretreated patient populations. With our extremely high response rate in TKI-naive patients, we do expect an overwhelming majority of this population to be treated with IBTROZI for an extended period, which we are now starting to see. Still, it is typical at the beginning of any oncology launch that the majority of patients who start therapy are in need of a third or even fourth medicine and the response and duration of treatment will unfortunately be lower.

While we expect IBTROZI to benefit these patients for a relatively shorter duration, meaning most will not remain on therapy for multiple quarters, we view this as an encouraging signal that providers are motivated to offer their patients a differentiated therapeutic option. While we have limited visibility into the characteristics of all IBTROZI patients, we do have some insight into the segment of patients that come through our Innovation Connect support program and specialty pharmacies. Within this group in 2025, we know that about 75% of discontinuations came from later-line populations. We’re encouraged that IBTROZI is providing another meaningful option for patients across lines of therapy and the patterns we’ve observed through this experience have given us 3 important insights.

First, discontinuation is strongly correlated with the line of therapy. IBTROZI has been well tolerated by first-line or TKI-naive patients, who have shown extremely high response rates in clinical trials. We also know that median DOR and PFS are much longer in this population than in the TKI pretreated population. Therefore, we expect to see far lower discontinuations as we move IBTROZI upstream in the treatment paradigm. Second, the fact that a significant share of our new patient starts at the beginning of launch were in the third-line plus setting helps explain the gap between an unprecedented number of patients starting IBTROZI and our net product revenue growth from the third to fourth quarter. As I mentioned, this late-line population unfortunately tends to discontinue therapy relatively quickly.

And as a result, the majority of these patients are not treated for multiple quarters. which directly impacts near-term revenue trends. By the end of 2026, we expect to see a more direct correlation between growth in new patient starts and growth in our revenue. As a larger portion of active patients treated with IBTROZI shift to those who are newly diagnosed. Lastly, first-line IBTROZI patients are the main driver to our long-term growth. And the reason we are so optimistic about our launch is because we continue to see a meaningful, steady increase in first-line patients starting on IBTROZI in recent months. Our data, including the number of previously treated patients in the market suggest that we are expanding the ROS1 TKI landscape rather than simply competing for a fixed pool of patients.

We anticipate this will directly impact the number of active patients on IBTROZI over multiple quarters going forward. And we plan to elaborate further on this trend as we collect more data in 2026. Switching to another key area of our launch dynamics, we continue to see use from providers in both academic and community settings nationwide. As of the end of 2025, approximately 70% of our new patient starts had come from the academic centers or IDNs and 30% from community centers, compared to a 75%, 25% split at the end of the third quarter. It is typical in a rare oncology launch that immediate uptake occurs in the academic setting. That said, this gradual shift towards the community is expected to increase over time, and in turn, will support prescription growth and momentum.

This is important because the majority of ROS1 patients will be found and treated in community centers. Looking ahead, we are focused on deepening adoption and continuing to raise awareness of the importance of patient identification. Today, DNA-based testing should identify roughly 3,000 advanced ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer patients annually in the U.S. And as the field shifts towards also utilizing RNA-based testing, which publication suggests may help to detect approximately 30% more ROS1 patients, the annual addressable population could potentially expand to roughly 4,000 advanced patients in the U.S. alone. Because of IBTROZI’s unprecedented durability, especially in the TKI-naive setting, this small incidence population turns into a substantial prevalence population, generating an opportunity to treat a meaningful number of patients over a period of several years.

Finally, I want to commend the efforts of our commercial team. We believe their hard work has positioned IBTROZI as the emerging market leader in this disease. There is still educational work that needs to be done, but I am beyond thrilled we have been able to deliver this therapy to so many patients in need. With that, I will now turn it over to Philippe.

Philippe Sauvage: Thanks, Colleen, and good afternoon, everyone. For detailed fourth quarter 2025 financials, please refer to our earnings press release, which is available on our website. Now let’s go over some important highlights of the quarter. I’m pleased to inform you that in the fourth quarter, we generated $41.9 million in total revenue, including receipt of the milestone payments, which brings our total revenue for 2025 to $62.9 million. These figures include $15.7 million and $24.7 million in IBTROZI net U.S. product revenue in the fourth quarter and full year 2025, respectively. As Colleen mentioned, we know a significant share of our product revenue was driven by patients, treated with IBTROZI as a third line plus option.

And unfortunately, these patients do not remain on therapy for very long. We do expect that over time, the bulk of our sales will be from first-line patients, staying on drug for many years. This trend of more TKI patients benefiting from IBTROZI is what makes us extremely optimistic about our long-term growth. As this occurs, we’ll be able to see the true impact of our 50-month median DOR on revenue growth. Still, this dynamic will play out gradually over time, and we will continue to update you on emerging trends. Our channel movements are stabilizing as we expected we would. And today, we believe our specialty pharmacy and distribution partners hold approximately 2 to 4 weeks of inventory on hand. This is standard and shows that our product revenue has been driven by true patient demand for IBTROZI.

In addition, our free trial program continues to provide patients with IBTROZI before they are fully reimbursed and this prescription generate full commercial revenue in the patient’s second month on therapy at the latest. Our approach to access has been extremely successful and has resulted in broad coverage for patients across the country. As I mentioned on our last call, our level of gross to net will naturally increase as we enter more contracts that allow us to cover more lives. As a result, our gross to net now sits around 25%, and we would expect this to slightly increase before stabilizing long term. This is based on our balance of business with commercial, Medicare, Medicaid and 340B plans and the limited amount of free medicine provided to date.

The remaining revenue for 2025 came from our collaboration and license agreements, including milestone payments, royalties, product supply and research and development services. In addition to ongoing royalty revenue from our partner in China, Innovent Biologics, we began receiving royalty revenue from our partner in Japan, Nippon Kayaku following regulatory approval and reimbursement in November, an event for which we received a milestone payment of $25 million. We also continued our mission to bring IBTROZI to as many patients as possible outside of the United States. In January, we announced our strategic partnership with Eisai, covering Europe and select territories outside of China and Japan. As a reminder, commercial rights in China and Japan were previously out-licensed and when those deal values are combined with the Eisai deal, this represents a total deal value of nearly $520 million for most territories outside of the U.S., but still excluding Latin America.

Under our agreement with Eisai, we received an upfront payment of approximately $60 million and are eligible for a payment of about $30 million upon European approval. We will also earn up to $140 million in milestone payments upon the achievement of certain sales level, in addition to double-digit tiered royalties up to the high teens on net sales in EIsai’s territories. This partnership meaningfully strengthens our cash position, allows us to reinvest in our own programs and allows us to precisely focus on our commercialization efforts in the United States. Looking ahead, we expect to file IBTROZI for approval in Europe with Eisai in the first half of this year. On the expense side, R&D expenses were $34.3 million for the quarter and $115.1 million for 2025.

We continue to invest in IBTROZI and importantly, are focused on bringing safusidenib to patients as quickly as possible. SG&A expenses were $40.3 million for the quarter and $151.6 million for 2025, primarily driven by support for commercialization. As discussed in prior quarters, we do not expect material increases in commercial head count going forward. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended at 2025 with $529.2 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. This cash position has increased by approximately $60 million following the upfront payment we received from Eisai. As a reminder, an additional $50 million remain available to us under our term loan agreement with Sagard Healthcare Partners until June 30, 2026. Our robust capital position gives us a flexibility to invest in our launch and pipeline, while also enabling the evaluation of additional business development opportunities that can create shareholder value, similar to our acquisition of AnHeart.

Based on our current operating plan, revenue trajectory and disciplined expense management, we do not anticipate the need for additional external financing to reach profitability. We remain a well-managed and agile organization that is positioned to execute our 2026 objectives. I’ll now hand it back to David.

David Hung: Thanks, Philippe. When I take a step back and reflect on our 2025, what gives me particular confidence is the foundation we’ve built for what comes next, an increasingly durable commercial franchise, a pipeline with meaningful long-term potential and a capital position that allows us to execute with discipline and flexibility. I’m incredibly proud of the team and grateful for the support of our investigators, partners, shareholders and most importantly, patients as we continue this journey into 2026. With that, I’ll ask the operator to open the line for questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Farzin Haque with Jefferies.

Farzin Haque: Congrats on the progress. So you’re not providing any revenue guidance yet for 2026. But what are you seeing in 1Q in terms of first-line and second-line plus mix that gives you confidence in meeting the consensus mark of $150 million for the year?

David Hung: Farzin, thanks for the question. This is David. So we’re — as we said, we feel that the patients are out there. We think that the robustness of the first 2 quarters shows that we are able to capture a lot of — a significant number of these patients. Just — if you look at the number of new patient starts, we think the trajectory has been pretty good. As we did say, the majority of our NPS, our new patient starts to date have been later lines, as you would expect. But we are seeing increases in first line news. But we’ve also made the point previously that we don’t have visibility into the majority of these patients. because unless they come to the Nuvation Connect Portal, we don’t actually necessarily know — what we need to know about them to know what line of therapy they are.

But what we’ve seen we do see a majority of our use currently in later lines of therapy. Clearly, those aren’t the ultimate price. Those patients, especially in the third-line study, have relatively short durations of response. And so that would lead to a much higher discontinuation rate. In fact, the vast majority of the discontinuations that we have seen are due to these late-line patients. But we are confident that over time, we’re going to see growth moving toward to the second line and then to the first-line setting. And so we think that the patients are there and we think that ultimately we will start to see first-line use a much longer durability and then the revenue stack that we’ve previously talked about.

Farzin Haque: Perfect. And then for safusidenib, can you provide an update on the current enrollment trajectory for the Phase III? And do you anticipate any interim analysis before the projected 2029 completion?

David Hung: We haven’t commented on our enrollment. Those patients are definitely there. As you know, there’s absolutely nothing for high-grade disease or vorasidenib approved only in a subset of low-grade disease. So we think that, that trial will enroll well. But it is a PFS study. So it’s going to take a while to get the number of events we need to see it — to see the results. So that’s why we’ve guided to a 2029 readout for that. But I would say that the patients are there. We feel very confident in the capabilities of our clinical operations and clinical development team. So we think that trial will enroll on target. We will not be any later than 2029 in reading that result out. And also — I’m sorry, we don’t have any plans right now for interim analysis. I forgot to mention that.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Leonid Timashev with RBC.

Leonid Timashev: I just want to ask a little bit more about the IBTROZI trajectory. I guess, in the fourth quarter, there was potentially some seasonality, maybe changes in diagnosis has also been a historically weaker quarter for some lung cancer drugs. I guess how should we think about the seasonal bounce back we should see in the first part of 2026. Is any of those maybe weather-related seasonality is going to pull through into the first quarter? And any kind of payer dynamics that we should be thinking about in the first quarter as well?

David Hung: The data set that we discussed, the seasonality was still based on just ROS1 TKI use in the last 4 years. So while there was a somewhat lower use in the fourth quarter, I would say, it’s hard to know if that would necessarily predict about what’s going to happen going forward. We feel confident the patients are there. We know — we know that from — just from our interactions with all the centers that we’re at, these patients are there. We think that with — while there’s always way to improve the amount of genetic testing, we think that new patient diagnosis will happen. We know there’s a prevalence pool of over 1,000 patients who are TKI experience. Clearly, those are the ones that are the — going to be the easiest ones to identify because they’ve already been on our ROS1 agent.

And clearly, we’ve already captured a significant number of those. But so I don’t really know if the seasonality will necessarily result in a bounce back. It could, but I can’t tell. And as you know, we just had a significant blizzard recently. So that was a pretty significant weather event. But, I don’t, again, know if that will change anything.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Michael Yee with UBS.

Unknown Analyst: This is Matt on for Mike. I wanted to ask on your expectations just kind of further trajectory cadence of patient uptake for the year, especially with maybe a competitor entering the market in the second-line setting, later in the year. How do you expect to see kind of the market shake out? I know you guys talked about TRKb as an important factor for you guys? Just kind of speak to the longer-term competitive landscape here would be great.

David Hung: Sure. Well, as you’ve already seen from the first 2 quarters that we’re over 200 new patient starts per quarter so far, and we think that’s going to continue. And I’ve already said that the majority of those are later line therapy. So if you talk about second or third line, we’ve already captured a significant amount of about 1,000 TKI experienced patients that we believe are out there. So — by the end of the year, we think that we will have probably captured a significant majority of all those patients. And as I said, what we’re looking for is growth in the first-line setting. And given our 50-month duration of response, which is unmatched and our tolerability profile, we would expect to claim the majority of that.

So that’s what we’re really looking for. We’re not really looking any more at later-line use because that’s — we’ve been there and we’ve actually captured much of that. But we’re looking towards the first-line growth, and that’s what everyone should be focusing on. I think the one of the most compelling features of our drug is its durability. As you know, patients and doctors decide on therapy based on efficacy and by far, the most important metric for efficacy is how long that drug will work. We think that TRKb is an important factor in durability. If you look at the lorlatinib data, there is no TKI with longer median PFS that lorlatinib in the CROWN study, which is over 5 years. And lorlatinib has significant TRKb activity. And if you look at CNS control rate, it’s really high.

And as you know, for a cancer like ROS1 lung cancer, which is so CNS tropic, where it starts in the brain more than 1/3 of the time and goes to the brain another 50% of the time. It’s really important to have as robust control of the CNS as you can. And we think that TRKb will play a significant role there. And as I’ve discussed previously, if you look at our intracranial response rate and our second line setting at 66%, that’s not been matched. There’s nothing close to that. So — we think that the profile of this drug is extremely compelling, tolerability, efficacy, we’re looking to move the first line, and we think that’s where the unmet need will persist after we’ve already taken care of the later lines of therapy, which we are capturing.

So we feel bullish. We feel we’re just where we need to be and things are heading in the right direction.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of [ Mary Coleman ] with Clear Street.

Unknown Analyst: Congratulations on the progress. For taletrectinib or IBTROZI, just in general, how much adoption of TKIs any — in the first-line setting? Have you observed following the NCCN guideline changes, especially in the community setting or community practices? And what factors or initiatives could further drive first-line use of IBTROZI there? And I have a couple after that safusidenib.

David Hung: Sure. So we did note that if you look at the other TKIs that before we were approved, we actually did see an increase in scripts in the other TKIs after the NCCN guidelines came out. So I think those guidelines were helpful, and they did increase TKI use. Now since the introduction of IBTROZI to the market after our approval, we’ve seen clear growth from the little glimpse that we see, we have been seeing increasing first line use, but it’s — again, our glimpse into that window is still limited at this point. I don’t — I can’t really speak in detail about it, we’ll need to wait until we have maybe a quarter or 2 more under our belt. But we feel that things are going in the right direction. We think the NCCN guidelines are going to be a real benefit.

Just the amount of IO/chemo use before those new guidelines was significant. And even after the guidelines, we still think that’s a challenge. But I think that now that IO is actually contraindicated, I think that’s only going to help drive the appropriate therapy. And as I’ve said earlier, there is no other therapy that can match our metrics on efficacy or even tolerability. So I think that we are well positioned to capture this. And I think the NCCN guidance will be a significant tailwind. But I think the greatest in the tailwind we have is just the strength of our label.

Unknown Analyst: All right. That’s helpful. And for the Phase III astrocytoma trial, what efficacy outcomes would be considered both clinically meaningful and commercially attractive. And — what is the kind of estimated market opportunity or value that it can provide? And for the other cohort, what was the rationale for adding the oligodendroglioma patients as a separate cohort? And how might this become a value-generating program?

David Hung: Yes. That’s a great question. So when I think about glioma, I divide it into a pie about 50-50 low grade on 1 side and about 50% high grade on the other side. But within those subsets, you can divide them again. So each side, both the lower and high grade have a low-risk and high-risk features. Currently, vorasidenib is only approved in 1 of those pieces of that pie. It’s only approved in low grade, low risk. That means what remains for an opportunity is high risk, low grade, low risk; high grade and high risk high grade. So the Phase III study that we’re doing targets 3 of those parts — 3 pieces of that pie. Instead of the vorasidenib 1 piece, our Phase III trial targets 3 of those pieces. So we think that’s a very significant unmet need for patients.

It’s clearly a much larger commercial opportunity. And so we — to get that drug approved in those 3 pieces of that pie, we have to do an overall — we have to do a progression-free survival study, which is why — we just need to enroll a certain number of patients. We have to follow them for a certain amount of time, and that’s why the readout is 2029. Now that said, we also think that it’s important for us to get this drug out to patients as quickly as possible. And there is yet another piece of that pie that isn’t currently being adequately addressed, which is — if you look at all grade 3 oligodendroglioma patients, these patients are a little bit different because unlike the Phase III study patients, which I talked about, those patients have completed surgery and radiotherapy and somewhere between 6 and 12 cycles of temozolomide.

So as a result, they don’t tend to have measurable disease. When you don’t have measurable disease, you have to use PFS. You can’t use response rate. Well, clearly, response rates are much faster readout than PFS. So the grade 3 oligodendroglioma study is important because those patients have measurable disease. These are patients who have not had a resection or not a recent one, have, in general, significant measurable disease, and they just can’t take because these patients can live 15-plus years, they just can’t take chemotherapy or radiotherapy every day for the next 15 years. I mean it would just be impossible to tolerate that. So we think it’s a huge unmet need. But because now these patients have measurable disease, we can use overall response rate, unlike the SIGMA Phase III study, which is a PFS readout — this will be an ORR, an overall response rate readout by RANO 2.0 criteria.

So we think that if we can see a significant response rate in that study, and we’ve guided to reading that study out by 2027. Clearly, that’s a much earlier readout. We know there are examples of all the glioma drugs being approved on a very small data set with response rate, we know that day 1 glioma drug was approved on less than 80 patients with an overall response rate. So clearly, we see a really robust response rate. We think that would — that would justify a discussion with FDA as to what would it take to get this drug approved to get it to patients a lot sooner than a readout in 2029 for the Phase III study. So we think that it’s important to do the study because, number one, it’s a really important unmet need. These patients just cannot take chemo and radiation for 15 years.

That’s just not tenable. They need something that’s much better tolerated, much more convenient. And secondly, it gives us an opportunity to see the activity of this drug in an area where nothing else works. Vorasidenib has no responses in this highway population. The response was literally 0%. So we think that it will give us an opportunity to look at the response rate of this drug and potentially initiate a discussion with FDA to just figure out how to get this drug to patients even earlier. We also think that generating data in this subset were nothing works and even vorasidenib has a 0% response rate will compel physicians and patients, who think, hey, this is a drug that has activity where nothing else does, should — is this a better drug.

Is this a more powerful drug. Is it to do things that other drugs can’t do. And we think that could potentially influence the glioma market and the practice of what position the patients decide to use or attempt for treating a disease that has relatively few treatment options that is still, at the end of the day, an invariably lethal disease. So we think that the second study is a very important study for all of those reasons.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Mayank Mamtani with B. Riley Securities.

Mayank Mamtani: Congrats on the progress. I appreciate the level of detail on IBTROZI launch. Just maybe on the metric should we expect for you to provide the new patient start numbers in the coming quarters, like you have and expect to see this 200-patient quarterly run rate to sort of continue in the coming quarters, including perhaps when there’s a competitor entrant later in the year? And also, what’s the real world discontinuation you’re seeing in earlier line? I know you gave the 75% discontinuation rate in later line. But I was just curious if you had something in frontline, I understand the sample size will be small there? Then I have a follow-up.

David Hung: So we have said since our very — since the first quarter that we reported sales that we would continue to look at new patient starts. I think that’s an important metric. It’s particularly important in the first year where depending on the mix of patients and the duration of response or the rate of discontinuation, your revenues will not necessarily track with your new patient starts, especially as an example of your a third-line patient you just continue in a month or 2, you’re not going to have the kind of revenues that you would expect in the first line setting. So we think it’s important, and we said this since June 11, when we got approved, that we would focus on new patient starts at least for the first year because I think that’s the best metric is our patients using this drug do physicians who want to prescribe it.

And over time, what you’ll see is that we’ve said there’s only about 1,000 or so TKI-experienced patients. So if you see — if you continue to see 200 patients per quarter, and we know that at some point, we’re going to have captured the majority of that 1,000 patients. That means any growth at all in that 200 number has to be in first-line patients. And while that revenue may not appear immediately because it takes you a year to get stacking. When you start to see that growth in first line, you will see over time revenue stacking. And you will also see a significant increase in revenue. It’s just not going to happen immediately because those third-line patients are going to come off, some of them discontinue within a month. And we think those first-line patients will be on for 5 months.

So I think that for the next few couple of quarters, we still think NPS is important. But a year into our launch, so by third quarter of this year, we’ll have been doing this for a year, and we continue to get 200-plus patients per quarter, and the majority of those are TKI experienced. That means we will have captured the majority of the TKI experience market. So any growth at all in that NPS number has to, by definition, be in first line. So I think that’s what you should be looking for. I think the revenues will catch up to NPS with a few more quarters. It’s just not going to do it right away, but that’s what you would expect.

Mayank Mamtani: On the discontinuation on the earlier line.

David Hung: Oh, yes, sorry. So 75% of our discontinuations came from late-line patients. So — so very late.

Philippe Sauvage: For the patients that we know, as David said, it’s a subset of patients, the one that we’re going through the hub or patients going through the hub and discontinuing 75% of them were late line, which gives a lot of confidence to us about the fact that, yes, the main patients will discontinue are clearly late line patients. If you go back to our clinical trial, the rate of discontinuation was very low, as you know, 6.5%, right? So this is really what we’re going to see. We’re going to see some of those late-line patients, unfortunately, as is expected in oncology, not responding very well to a third or fourth line of therapy. That’s true in oncology. And what we’ve seen in our subset going through the hub is that those are the most discontinuation we see by far.

Mayank Mamtani: Understood. And then on the nonpivotal cohort SIGMA study that David, you just touched on, is there a threshold on ORR that you may have quantified or have in mind that would warrant that accelerated approval discussion? Sorry if I missed that.

David Hung: I think that we’ve seen OR anywhere north of 20%. I mean this is a population, as you said, the biggest glioma drug in the world, vorasidenib has a 0% response rate in that population. So couldn’t be lower, maybe, but certainly at 20% or higher, I think that would be extremely interesting.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Greg Renza with Truist.

Gregory Renza: Congrats on the progress. David, just maybe on your current resource position. As you’ve commented on the current financial structure and also the path with the IBTROZI launch, maybe providing that path to potential profitability. Just wondering if you could provide a finer point on maybe what that horizon looks like. And related to this, as you’ve spoken about business development, you’ve mentioned the complementarity that IBTROZI and safusidenib provide for the pipeline. How are you thinking about adding to that mix especially in light of that focus or that mention of profitability?

David Hung: So you might recall that last year before we announced the Sagard Healthcare deal, we had said that at that point, we had enough cash to reach profitability. Well, since we made that statement, we raised $150 million with Sagard with another $50 million in debt. And then since then we’ve done a deal with Eisai, where we got another $60 million, and we’ll have yet another $30 million upon European approval submission or approval next year. So we stand by that statement. We — we have certainly far more cash than we need to get to profitability. Now if we do a significant business development deal that would certainly take some cash. But — we’re aware of the importance of getting to profitability without having to need additional financing.

These are still difficult markets. I think that we, in general, we’ve been relatively conservative on that front. So we’ll carefully weigh the upside of a deal. And certainly, any deal we do would have to be what we consider a good deal as we consider AnHeart, we think that was a great deal for us. So any further business would have to be a great deal for us. So we have to be — we have to weigh the benefits and cons of using our cash and cutting into our runway to profitability. But we feel very, very confident that we’ll get to profitability right now easily with what we have on hand. And we do believe that given what we have, we think that further business development is an important — it’s always been an important part of our company growth historically.

And we think we will continue to look for opportunities that we think are particularly compelling for us, especially if they can capture some of the synergies that we already have within our company.

Gregory Renza: That’s great. I appreciate that color. And maybe just one last one. If you could just comment on the DDC platform. I think I heard you mention maybe some updates into the year. Just maybe just remind us of your conviction on the platform as you invest at that area of the business?

David Hung: So we are absolutely convinced that, that platform is real and has real potential. We — that was a first-in-class compound. It’s a first in history compound actually. So we learned a lot with 1511. And it wasn’t that we didn’t see any responses at all. We did see responses with 1511. It just weren’t consistent enough for us to invest $100 million also in a Phase III study. We look at all our all our drug candidates as would this be worth spending $100 million on or should we make it better? And it’s something you always have to balance in early-stage programs. So the answer for 1511 was probably not. And we learned enough to figure out how to make it better or to make a DDC better, and we are hard at work doing that. But we feel very confident that our DDC program will yield molecules that will go to the clinic and that we probably will take forward in development and we’ll update you all hopefully by year-end this year.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Yaron Werber with TD Securities.

Steven Ionov: Thank you very much, team, for the question. This is Steven on for Yaron. On the IBTROZI launch, in terms of trying to get more penetration in the first-line setting, where it seems like crizotinib might still be entrenched, what else can you do in terms of increasing the potential for first line? Have you engaged regulators to try to perhaps get a preference in the 1L setting in the NCCN guidelines? And if so, how is that going? And secondly, any update or perhaps any news on the BET inhibitor NUV-868? And then thirdly, on the approval in Europe, I seem to remember that there was in a head-to-head trial versus XALKORI that was thought to be necessary for approval. It seems like that’s no longer the case. Can you maybe update on the thinking there?

David Hung: Sure. Let me take the first couple of questions, then I’ll hand to Colleen. So — so crizotinib is — you still use a significant amount because it is pretty well tolerated. But as you know, crizotinib does not cross the blood-brain barrier. And when there were no options other than crizotinib, that would have been appropriate. Today, I would consider it about practice to use crizotinib in the first-line setting for — when you don’t really know which patient is going to go on to develop the CNS that way. First of all, 36% of them present with a brain met. But even if they don’t — we know that 50% of them will go on to get a brain met. I can’t tell which the 1 of 2 is going to do that. And to give a drug that doesn’t have any CNS coverage, in my opinion, as an oncologist is malpractice.

I think that is inappropriate for patients. So I can’t comment on how long crizotinib will be entrenched. I think that KOLs and patients appreciate the importance of CNS coverage. And I think that’s part of our job and Colleen’s team is — that’s one of our main messages. I think we have to continue to do that. So I can’t tell you that crizotinib will go away. But I do think that over time, it is the absolutely wrong drug to use for this disease. In terms of engaging regulators to get preference in the first line setting, we do actually believe that our drug is differentiated. And we are looking at strategies to have that captured within the NCCN guidance. So on that, I would say stay tuned on that. But we are well aware of the difference in performance metrics of our drug against other drugs.

So we think that IBTROZI is an extremely compelling choice for patients and physicians. And we think that should be adequately reflected in all the sources that are available for patients and so — and so and physicians. And so — that is not lost on us. Colleen?

Colleen Sjogren: Steven, I just want to elaborate a little bit more, so David spoke about — the patients that we’re receiving that have been pretreated, and obviously, progression toxicity that you just spoke to, brain-penetrant. So in addition to those patients, we’re also looking to expand the market and you ask what else can we do? So I will tell you that it’s our personal mission that we take it very personally that these patients that have ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer are going through their patient journey in the appropriate way. And 1 of those ways is to ensure that they’re being tested before a treatment decision is made. So when we look at educational opportunities, we have several of them in this idea that patients are not only getting tissue, but liquid biopsies and I spoke about also earlier DNA testing being very, very important to understand the actionable mutations before a treatment decision is made.

So in addition to us getting patients that are being switched off other TKIs, we are definitely growing the market and helping to educate more on the importance of understanding the entire picture before treatment decision is made.

Steven Ionov: Okay. And then on 868 and then the European approval?

David Hung: So on the European side, we don’t believe that any additional clinical trials will be needed, and we’ll give you more details once the MA is submitted. On 868, there’s been some interesting — some interest in that compound. So I think we’re looking at all our options.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Silvan Tuerkcan with Citizens.

Silvan Tuerkcan: I just wanted to ask is the gross to net for the pricing stabilize at this point? And can you share where that’s coming out? And if you have any idea where that will end up?

David Hung: Yes. Thanks for your question, Silvan. So I mentioned during my presentation that we were a little bit above 25% for Q4 and that we were still expecting this to grow a little bit beyond that, to say exactly when it’s going to stabilize is always a very difficult question because it all depends upon negotiations with payers, obviously. But yes, we think that we are in a very good place in terms of access, which is what we wanted. We really wanted to make sure that all patients that needed that access reported that’s what we were. And we think that doing all of that will take us probably a little bit further up, but not so high. I give you much more detail than that. But yes, we’re still going to increase that a little bit in the coming quarters.

Operator: There are no further questions waiting at this time. That will conclude today’s call. I would now like to pass the conference back over to management team for closing.

David Hung: Thanks so much. We want to thank you for all your support. Launches can be anxious. I think everyone has been looking at our numbers. We’ve gotten some feedback that some people might have been disappointed with the gap they perceived between the new patient starts and the revenue number. This is to be expected. As you know, in launches, especially in oncology and as an oncologist, I can tell you that late-line patients get started first. They’re the ones that are out of options. The pool is already identified. This is a prevalent population. It’s hard to find the new patients. So when you get those late-line patients, they’re going to discontinue faster. I would say just be patient. It’s all going to happen. We’re very confident in this launch.

We like the way things are going, and we think that we will get the first-line patients as long as those NPS numbers continue anywhere remotely in that ballpark. We know that we are running out of TKI experienced patients. The growth will be in first line. So I want to thank all of you for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you further on our next call.

Operator: That concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.