Arvinas, Inc. (ARVN) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Arena's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After this speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star-11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star-11 again. Please provide that today's conference has been recorded. I'd like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jeff Boyle, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Earlier today, we issued a press release with our first quarter of 2026 financial results, which is available in the Investor and Media section of our website at Arbenis.com. Joining us on the call today, we have Randy Keel, our President and CEO, Noah Berkowitz, our Chief Medical Officer, Angela Kikasey, our Chief Scientific Officer, and Andrew Saek, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'll remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. These risks and uncertainties are outlined in today's press release and in the company's recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which I urge you to read. Our actual results may differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. A replay of the call, as well as today's press release and an updated corporate deck will be available on the Investor and Media section of our website. And now I'll turn the call over to Randy Thiel. Randy?

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you all for joining us today. Since stepping into the role as CEO earlier this year, my appreciation for the strength of the Arvinas platform, the talent and execution capability of our team, and our deep and differentiated pipeline has only grown. As the first ProTac degrader company, we believe we've built unmatched translational expertise in the protein degrader space. I believe we're in a great position for a highly productive and value-generating 2026. Several months ago, after filing the new drug application for Vepdegastrant, we announced our intention to identify a third party with the capability to maximize its commercial opportunity. During this time, we remained confident that Vepdegastrant had the potential to become a meaningful treatment option for patients with metastatic breast cancer. Our optimism was validated by the recent FDA approval of VepDeg, now known as Vepinu, and yesterday afternoon, we were pleased to announce that we and Pfizer have entered into a global licensing agreement with Rigel Pharmaceuticals for the commercialization, development, and manufacturing of Vepinu. I'll begin with the FDA's approval of Vepinu for the treatment of ESR1 mutant ER-positive HER2-negative advanced breast cancer. This is an important milestone for patients and physicians and demonstrates the potential of targeted protein degradation to treat disease. There have been minimal second-line treatment options for these patients, and as the lead investigator in our Phase 3 trial said, the approval of Vepinu brings renewed hope to patients who need additional options. The approval of Vepinu was the first-ever approval of a heterobifunctional protact degrader. In our industry, few biotechs are successful in bringing a molecule from discovery through approval. Fewer companies still make it onto the very short list of companies, big or small, that have ever been the first to bring a new therapeutic modality from inception to approval. We believe this achievement fully validates our innovative targeted degrader platform, which Arvinas pioneered more than 10 years ago. It also strengthens our confidence in the breadth and versatility of our exciting Phase I pipeline across oncology, neurodegenerative disorders, and neuromuscular diseases. I am deeply grateful to the team that has worked tirelessly on Vepinu, with the unfaltering belief that it can bring renewed hope to patients who need new treatment options. We are committed to making sure Vepinu is available for patients as soon as possible. RIGEL has a fully established oncology sales team and the infrastructure needed to ensure Vepinu is available soon. They are committed to unlocking the full value of Vepinu, and we are confident that they are the right partner to bring this important treatment to the patients that need it. At the same time, this agreement allows our Venice to invest in the next wave of innovation across our pipeline, while maintaining a strong and disciplined approach to capital allocation. Indeed, this was the rationale for seeking a new partner for Vepinu, so that patients could receive Vepinu while our Venice could dedicate itself to our next generation of degraders. I am fortunate to lead an organization advancing an industry-leading portfolio of degraders. Guided by patient genetics and by identifying the central drivers of disease, we deliberately select targets where protein degradation can deliver transformative impact. To date, we have dosed more than 2,000 patients and healthy volunteers using our ProTech technology, and our team has had remarkable success in advancing promising compounds from preclinical studies to clinical programs. As we look ahead, our ambition is clear. We are not simply advancing molecules to the clinic. We are relentlessly focused on creating differentiated therapies that raise the bar for patients on safety, tolerability, and efficacy. We're not looking for incremental improvements, but rather working toward fundamentally changing what's possible for patients and clinicians. And we are doing it from a position of strength. With a healthy balance sheet and a deeply committed team, we are well positioned to deliver long-term value for patients, their families, and our shareholders. We are in the promising position of having four Phase I clinical programs ongoing with the capital needed to reach important inflection points for each of the programs that will inform our investment priorities and ongoing development strategies. Now I'll turn the call over to Noah and the team. Noah?

Thanks, Randy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We have an exciting year ahead at Arvinas, beginning with the recently presented Phase 1 data for our LEAD program, ARV 102 at ADPD. These results represent a key milestone and provide strong validation of our approach in neurodegenerative diseases. ARB-102 is an orally administered protac designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and potently and selectively degrade LARC-2, a multi-domain protein that regulates neuroinflammation, lysosomal, and synaptic function. Elevated LARC-2 levels are implicated in disorders, including progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP, and Parkinson's disease. By degrading the full LARC-2 protein complex, including its scaffolding, GTPase, and kinase functions, ARB-102 addresses multiple disease-relevant pathways in contrast to kinase inhibitors, which target only a single function. We have shown that ARV102 penetrates the CNS, produces dose-dependent reductions of LARC2 in cerebrospinal fluid, and modulates downstream disease-associated proteins. At ADPD, Phase I data in patients with Parkinson's disease demonstrated approximately 50% or greater reductions in CSF LARC2 by day 14 across dose levels sustained through day 28, consistent with our goal of normalizing the approximately two-fold LARC-2 elevation observed in Parkinson's disease. Importantly, LARC-2 degradation led to dose-dependent reductions in biomarkers of neuroinflammation and liposomal stress, including CD68 and GPNMB. To our knowledge, this degree of biomarker modulation has not been observed with LARC-2 inhibitors. ARV-102 was also generally well-tolerated with no serious adverse events through 28 days of dosing. These findings support advancement into PSP, our immediate clinical focus. PSP is a rapidly progressive tauopathy driven by 4R tau accumulation with the typical survival of 5 to 7 years and no disease-modifying therapies. In patients with PSP, elevated LARP-2 expression is associated with accelerated and clinically meaningful progression within one year. Pre-clinically, we have shown that ARV-102 impacts neuroinflammation, enhances endolysosomal function, and most importantly, reduces tau pathology in multiple relevant disease models, aligning with our clinical observations of improved endolysosomal function and reduced neuroinflammation. Together, these data reinforce our view that LARC-2 degradation offers a differentiated disease-modifying approach to the treatment of PSP, a devastating fatal disease without available therapy, which affects 25,000 patients in the U.S. I also want to provide an update on the timeline for initiating our Phase 1B clinical trial with ARB-102 in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. We submitted an IND earlier this year with the intention of initiating the trial in the U.S. during the first half of the year. Following the 30-day review period, the FDA requested final data from our chronic tox studies in non-human primates prior to authorizing the initiation of the Phase 1B in the U.S. in patients with PSP. Given this requirement, while no patients in the U.S. have been treated, the planned trial is on clinical hold and will not begin until we provide these data, which we expect will be available in mid 2026. We anticipate the U.S. trial will begin by the end of 2026. We do not anticipate this will impact our plans for trials in the EU, so there's no change in our guidance on the start of the Phase II study, which we are planning as a global study. Turning now to oncology, I'll begin with ARV806, our KRAS G12D degrader. KRAS G12D is a well-characterized oncogenic driver associated with poor outcomes and resistance to standard therapies across multiple tumor types, including pancreatic, colorectal, and non-small cell lung cancers. ARV806 is designed to potently and selectively eliminate both on and off forms of KRAS G12D, a key differentiator for a challenging target in solid tumors. Our confidence in ARV806 is supported by compelling preclinical results, which demonstrated approximately 25 to 40-fold greater potency than clinical stage KRAS G12D inhibitors and degraders. These data also showed durable degradation greater than 90% for seven days after a single dose with efficacy responses across pancreatic, colorectal, and lung cancer models. As we shared on our prior call, we completed enrollment of the dose escalation for once-weekly administration in our ongoing phase one trial well out of schedule. We view this rapid enrollment as a strong indicator of investigator enthusiasm and unmet medical need in KRAS-driven cancers. We believe the initial data we show later this year will be the first step in showcasing ARV806's potential as a differentiated and clinically meaningful treatment option for patients with KRAS-driven cancers. Finally, turning to ARV393, our PROTEC BCL-6 degrader, we continue progressing through the Phase I monotherapy dose escalation trial for patients with both B-cell and T-cell lymphomas who have received multiple prior therapies. We are particularly encouraged by early responses observed across both populations, including responses at exposure levels below what we predicted to be efficacious. We have also observed robust BCL-6 degradation, a notable finding given that BCL-6 is rapidly resynthesized. We look forward to sharing additional clinical data from our ongoing phase one monotherapy trial in patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma later this year. In parallel to enrolling the monotherapy cohort, we've initiated a combination trial with glofitimab in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, an important next step as we look to expand the potential opportunity with ARV393. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Angela. Angela?

Thanks, Noah, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin by talking about the patients with spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, also known as SBMA or Kennedy's disease. These patients are living with a progressive neuromuscular disorder that steadily robs them of muscle strength and endurance. It's an X-linked disease caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the androgen receptor gene, which leads to the buildup of a toxic form of the protein, polyglutamine-expanded AR, or poly-QAR, in skeletal muscle. That accumulation disrupts normal muscle function, drives atrophy, and over time significantly impacts the quality of life. In other words, poly-QAR is the root cause of the disease, and there are currently no approved disease-modifying therapies for these patients. With ARV-027, we've designed a protac degrader specifically to eliminate the toxic poly-QAR protein from muscle cells. By removing the driver of pathology, rather than just managing symptoms, we aim to preserve muscle function and alter the course of the disease. We've now enrolled the first three cohorts in our Phase I Single Ascending Dose Study in Healthy Volunteers, which is an important step forward for the program. Given our extensive experience with AR degraders, we feel confident in our ability to translate this approach into clinical benefit. Earlier this year, at the Kennedy's Disease Association Conference, we shared preclinical data in an aggressive SBMA mouse model showing that our oral ARV-027 degraded polyq AR in muscle, led to meaningful functional improvements, and extended survival. As a reminder, we have a terrific track record in developing AR degraders. Our first clinical candidate was an AR degrader, and Lux deglutamide, which we outlicensed to Novartis in 2024, is progressing through multiple Phase II trials in hormone-sensitive and castration-resistant prostate cancer. We are excited about the potential of ARV-027 to become the first disease-modifying therapy for patients with SPMA. Now, let me turn to the discovery pipeline as we move closer to the clinic. First, ARV-6723, our oral immuno-oncology protacted grader for solid tumors. The target is HPK1, which acts as a brake on the immune system. It dampens T-cell signaling and suppresses both innate and adaptive anti-tumor responses. What makes the HPK1 target especially challenging is that it works in two ways, not just through its kinase activity, but also as a signaling scaffold. So, inhibition alone doesn't fully shut it down. Degradation does. And that's exactly what we see with ARV6723, deep sustained removal of the protein and both of its functions. In preclinical models, the data are very compelling. We see strong single-agent anti-tumor activity across multiple tumor types, including both high and low immunogenic settings. In fact, ARV6723 showed greater tumor growth inhibition, outperforming both an HPK1 inhibitor and anti-PD-1. Even more importantly, in seven checkpoint-resistant models, ARV6723 showed activity as a single agent, while the inhibitor and anti-PD-1 were inactive. And mechanistically, this isn't just about T cells. We're seeing reversal of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, as we just showed at the American Association for Cancer Research Conference. ARV6723 induces a meaningful impact on the myeloid compartment, which you typically don't see with standard checkpoint therapies. So, stepping back, we believe this program has the potential to really change the treatment paradigm in immuno-oncology landscape, and we're on track to enter the clinic later this year. Finally, let me touch on our oral pan-KRAF ProTac program.

Three key points to frame it.

First, we're seeing broad degradation of KRAS across multiple alterations, including wild-type amplified KRAS with selectivity over other RAS isoforms. Importantly, this works on both the on and the off signaling states. Second, what matters biologically, by degrading the protein and removing the oncoprotein rather than just inhibiting it, we are seeing stronger antiproliferative and proaphytotic effects along with greater tumor growth inhibition. Third, in preclinical models, this approach shows enhanced activity, especially in combination with anti-PD-1, compared to the investigational PAN-RAS-ON inhibitor. That gives us confidence in a differentiated PAN-K-RAS degradation strategy that also complements our KRAS-G12D program. We'll be sharing more updates later this year. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andrew to review our quarterly financial results.

Thanks, Angela, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to provide financial highlights for the first quarter, and full year ended March 31, 2026. As a reminder, detailed financial results for the first quarter are included in the press release we just issued this morning. Reiterating the team sentiment, we have much to look forward to later this year and are pleased with our strong financial position that will allow us to continue to advance our pipeline into the second half of 2028. At the end of the first quarter, we had $614.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on the balance sheet, compared with $685.4 million at the end of 2025. With our healthy balance sheet and focus on our early pipeline, we are well-positioned to continue to develop our promising oncology and neurology programs. Turning to our first quarter 2026 financial highlights, revenue for the three months ended March 31st, 2026, totaled $15.6 million, compared to $188.8 million in revenue for the same period in 2025. The decrease of $173.2 million was due to decreased revenue recognized from the Degastrant Collaborative Agreement with Pfizer driven by changes to the estimated remaining program costs. General administrative expenses were $19.1 million for the first quarter compared to $26.6 million for the same period of 2025. The decrease of $7.5 million was primarily due to a decrease in professional fees of $5.3 million. Research and development expenses were 60.3 million dollars in the first quarter compared to 90.8 million for the same period of 2025. The decrease of 30.5 million was primarily driven by a decrease in compensation and related personal expenses of 15.6 million and a decrease in program specific expenses of 9.5 million. Our cost reduction programs initiated last year and finishing up mid-year 2026 continue to materially reduce our expenses. Non-GAAP R&D was down $25 million compared to the same period last year, representing a reduction of 32%. Non-GAAP GNA came down by 10.1 million or 44% compared to prior year. Total non-GAAP expenses of 67.3 million is down 35.1 million from the same period last year and is representative of our new cost structure for 2026. We continue to maintain our cash runway guidance into the second half of 2028, and in doing so, we will be able to fund operations through key data milestones over the coming months and continue to support our differentiated programs that have the potential to meaningfully improve patients' lives. Additionally, our cash position will benefit from an approval milestone related to the approval of Vepinu, which we expect to receive later in the year, and the upfront and near-term milestones from our out-licensing agreement with Rigel. With that, I'll turn the call over to Randy for closing remarks. Randy?

Over the past 10 years, Arvinas has proven itself a leader in making potent, selective, orally bioavailable, and brain-penitent ProTACs with differentiated profiles. We've now successfully developed the first ProTAC to receive FDA approval, an accomplishment we believe further validates our technology and promising pipeline. Outlicensing Vepenu to Rigel Pharmaceuticals allows us to focus on our Phase I clinical programs, each of which were advanced based on very differentiated preclinical data. We believe these programs have the potential to transform treatment paradigms across oncology and neurology. We are positioned to deliver multiple clinical updates across our portfolio, including both ARV-806 and ARV-393 later this year, and we expect to bring our HBK1 degrader, ARV-6723, into the clinic in the coming months. For ARV-102, we are working diligently to provide additional data needed to enable the initiation of the Phase I-B trial in patients with PSP. We anticipate beginning this trial, and potentially a registrational trial, in the second half of the year. This is a defining year for Arvinas. It is a year of focused execution, clinical progress, and multiple shots on goal, all powered by a healthy balance sheet and a team deeply committed to advancing differentiated first-in-class therapies. We believe the work we're doing has the potential to fundamentally change treatment paradigms and deliver meaningful impact for patients with serious unmet needs. With that, I'll turn the call back to Jeff to begin the Q&A.

Thanks, Randy. And as a reminder for everyone, we're available to take questions offline if you aren't able to join the queue. But for now, I'm going to ask the operator to open up the line for Q&A.

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of Kripa Devaganda of True Securities. Your line is now open.

Hi, this is Anna on for Kripa. Thanks so much for taking our question. Just two quick questions on the Rigel partnership. Congrats on that. Could you talk a little bit about the economics associated with Rigel sub-licensing the drug outside of the U.S. and kind of how our Venus and Pfizer may split the percentage of the sub-licensing revenue and remind us what the ongoing development activities are that Rigel is expected to contribute that $40 million towards.

Thanks so much.

Thank you very much for the question. And yeah, I just want to start by saying how happy we are to get that done, right? So it's been really important to us to make sure that Depanew gets to patients as quickly as possible now that it's approved as the first ever protact-urator to get approved. You know, we really chose Rigel as a partner because we were confident in their ability to really maximize the value of the drug and get it to patients quickly and efficiently. It's been a great process with them, and we're grateful to them for that. In terms of the economics around it, maybe I'll turn over to Andrew to talk about that.

Yeah, thanks, Randy, and thanks for the question. Yeah, the way to think about our out license and our deal with Pfizer, Pfizer and us both have a 50-50 interest. So when you read things like milestones and royalties, think about Pfizer and us splitting those right down the middle for the duration of the out license. The economics that we put in the press release this morning largely pertain to the U.S. That's where we have our current approval. Rigel has global rights. As you may know, Rigel is mainly focused in the U.S., so they would need to find partners to launch it internationally. There would also be a royalty coming back to Pfizer and us, but we did not disclose that number in the press release as we only have a U.S. approval at this time.

Thank you.

One moment for our next question. Our next question is from the line of Edson Doral of Barclays. Your line is now open.

This is Luke. Thanks for taking my question. For 806, the KMOS G12D, can you talk about the scope of the data that we'll get later this year around, like, the number of patients, follow-up time, et cetera, and, you know, what you're viewing as the bar of success or advancement of the future development. And then for 027, how translatable is the mouse model into humans, and what are the relevant biomarkers that we can look for from the healthy volunteer study, or is this really just going to be a safety assessment?

Great. Thanks for the questions, and we can take them maybe in turn, and I'll look for Noah and Angela that jumped in here, too. On 806, those data will be coming out this year. As you know, we're in a phase one dose escalation, which has been going on since last year. Obviously, that's a space that's been evolving pretty rapidly over the past few months and a space that we're pretty excited about having a project degrader for G12D. We've said the data will be coming in 2026. We haven't been exactly specific on where and when. we will be sharing safety PK PD and some initial response rate data clearly the later in the year that we get that those data out the more durability data we'll look to have which is obviously what we think is going to be some of the most important information for comparison so that's the story for 806 maybe for 027 Angela the question on translatability of models sure so for air v 027 we know that we're targeting the polyglutamine repeat antigen receptor.

This is the only form of antigen receptor that's expressed in SBMA. It's the root cause of the disease, and that's exactly what we're going after, right? We have a lot of experience with antigen receptor degraders. We've put many of them into the clinic, and we know that we degrade the antigen receptor clinically. So what we're hoping to achieve clinically is just that in muscle, right? We've designed this androgen receptor degrader to degrade the polyglutamine repeat androgen receptor in muscle. We've proven that in this aggressive mouse model where we've shown not only very nice dose-dependent degradation of the polyglutamine repeat androgen receptor in muscle, we've also shown that we've rescued two endophenotypes that are very important for the disease, endurance and strength, right? So, you know, our goal is to translate that ultimately into the disease. But first, we need to show pharmacodynamically that we impact the target in muscle, and that's our goal with the phase one trial and healthy volunteers.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes online, Yugo Nokomovic of Citigroup. Your line is now open.

Hi, this is Caroline Onfiegel. Thanks for taking our question. Can you tell us what are the average levels of LARC-2 in PSP patients? And would the 50% knockdown seen in Parkinson's be enough to bring PSP patients back into normal physiologic range? Thanks.

Yeah, that is exactly our thinking. But in terms of patients with Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases where LARC2 is playing a role is generally double. So that is the thinking there. Anything else you'd like to add, Noah?

Sure. So we can speak towards the levels that we see with the assay that we have. I think it's important to recognize that LARC2 is an evolving area, and different folks in clinical trials and in just general kind of phase zero studies just doing assessments of CSF have different measurements, but we recognize that healthy volunteers, think of it roughly as healthy volunteers having a little below 10 picograms per ml as their median LARC2 level, and patients with Parkinson's disease having about twice that. And as you said, I think you hit it spot on. Our goal would be to reduce the Parkinson's disease patient levels towards that. It's what's seen in healthy comparators.

And the good news there is that that's exactly what we have seen in our studies to date. So in the studies that we showed at ADPD in our phase ones, if you compare the healthy volunteers to the patients with PD, we do, in fact, see that the patients have, you know, somewhere on the order of double the LARC-2. And in addition to that, we're able to show that after treatment with ARB-102 that we then knock down and reduce that level of LARC-2 by at least 50 percent, depending on the dose that we get. So we feel like we certainly have a path to get there.

And just to add to that, in postmortem brain, we know from published results that there's twofold elevation in microglia in the brain as well, and that by normalizing that, we feel that we'll normalize neuroinflammation as well in the biomarkers that Noah and his team have shown. We move, we hope, will alter the course of the disease. And just to clarify, so you expect the same for PSP patients as the Parkinson's patients?

Could you say that again? Ask the question.

Do you seem to respond in terms of Parkinson's patients?

And I was just clarifying that, you know, you expect the same 50% knockdown in PSP patients.

Right. So we also expect that there's, well, we have shared, well, there are data that have been published by others demonstrating an association of LARC2 with PSP. We understand that in general in these neurodegenerative diseases, when the LARC2 protein is mutated, but also when it's expressed at higher levels, it's leading to endolysosomal dysfunction, which can drive the accumulation of pathological proteins. PSP fits into that perfectly. It has the genetic association with LARC-2. There is accumulation of pathological tau, and our expectation is that we will see reductions of LARC-2 in the PSP patients, which would lead to an improvement in the tau deposition or reduction in it.

And to add to what Noah said, there's elevated LARC-2 in peripheral monocytes, so biomarkers are elevated. So LARC-2 is elevated in PSP, and this is correlated with more rapid progression clinically within a year in that already progressive disease. So, you know, that indicates to us that reducing LARC-2 could move the needle in that disease. That's PSP.

Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question, because the line of Sudan Luganathan of Stephen's, the line is now open.

Thanks for having me on, and congrats on the FANU approval and the Rigel deal. The first question I wanted to have was on VEPDAG program. For any future clinical trial developments or any ongoing trial developments, how is that going to be structured in the way that you or Rigel or Pfizer will be managing it. And then secondly, I wanted to ask if there's any combinations with the ARV806 for the KRAS-G12B degrader, if there's any combination options as you're looking at the difference on the tumor indications you're going after. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks for the questions. On Vepanu, the ongoing trials, as you know, are being run by us Pfizer. As we talked about this morning in the releases, Rigel will provide some cost offsets for some of those ongoing development plans. For future development work, the economics then would fall to Rigel. However, it will make sense to wait a little bit for us to get through the appropriate reviews and get that transaction fully closed before talking about that. And really, the questions on development will go to Rigel. We're pretty excited with where we are right now in terms of what we've created for a development plan for VEP and getting that to patients. In terms of 806 combos, Noah, would you like to join in?

Oh, sure. So we have shared some data previously and are continuing to share about combinations of 806. You can look at upcoming congresses to see what happens, for example, But when you combine with chemotherapy, we're obviously doing work to look at other combinations internally. Right now, our guidance is simply towards sharing the results of our dose escalation.

And just to add that, you know, we know that we are combinable from a degrader perspective with anti-PV1. This is something that we've shared, and it looks different than diraxone racids. We've also shown functionally that we don't inhibit T cell receptor function, which is different than diraxone. So, we feel that we have opportunities there as well.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes in line of Michael Smith of Guggenheim. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. maybe one on the BCL-6 program, could you comment on potential for differentiation from the Bristol Cell Mod program? And just help us understand what you're doing in a phase one study, the monotherapy study, is that in all comers, are patients selected in any way? And how should you think about the efficacy bar in B and T cell lymphomas?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Michael. Right. So ARV393, our B-cell sixth or greater, it's a program in our phase one dose isolation as of now. And that's a program that when we began, it really was considered undruggable. So we've been gratified to see some of that early data from BMS around response rates in B-cell tumors. And as we reminded folks this morning, while that phase one is ongoing for us, we mentioned last fall that we have seen some early responses in both B and T-cell lymphomas. In terms of the potential for differentiation, Noah, would you like to speak?

Sure. I just want to clarify, though. The question was differentiating us from, you said the Selmide. The Brifol, yeah. No, but so were you talking about Golcadamide or their BCL6? I just wanted to be clear in my response.

The BCL6, I'm sorry.

Oh, the BCL6. So the BCL-6 degrader that they've published on demonstrates activity in follicular and large B-cell lymphomas. So we're obviously looking at that. A way that we've differentiated our dose escalation study is that we've cued in on AITL as well. This population, angio-immunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, represents about 3% of all NHLs. There is tremendous unmet medical need because after first-line shock where patients will progress pretty rapidly on average in about a year or less, there really isn't a good standard of care. and we've described that we've enrolled such patients in our study. We've seen responses. It becomes an important area of differentiation in terms of the development plan for us. In terms of efficacy bars, so there becomes a difference between efficacy bars and T-cell malignancies and B-cell malignancies. I described AIT-LTU. If we shift to B-cell malignancies and look at the two major ones, follicular, there's diminishing unmet medical need because patients have very long progression-free survivals with current first, second, and third line therapies. In large B-cell lymphoma, which we've hinted at, or not even, I guess we've stated that that's an area of more interest to us, there is also diminishing unmetical need, but still a significant enough one in second and third line, where even though you have drugs like CAR-T that can be curative and you have tremendous responses with bispecifics, fundamentally patients are still progressing. And we envision a future where we'll be combining with bispecifics and impacting large B-cell lymphoma. So we already shared today that we started dosing patients in a large B-cell lymphoma dose escalation where we combined with glofitimab. So that becomes an important part of our program.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ananda Gosh of AC and Redline Co. Your line is now open.

Hey, hi, Tim. Good morning, and thanks for giving me the opportunity. I have two questions, one on KRAS and one on the log-2 degrader. Maybe start with the KRAS. You know, the ACR 2026 had pretty good disclosure-rich data on how the competitive landscape for KRAS inhibitors slash degraders look like. So my question is, what were the learnings from the ACR data reads with respect to tolerability, efficacy, you know, the efficacy bar and resistance aspect of the KRAS problem?

Thanks for the question. Yes, look, on KRAS in general, and I'll pass to Noah here in a moment, I think you're absolutely right to point out this space is evolving quickly. We're pleased to see the RevMed data come out both earlier, you know, a month or so ago, and then the recent publication, which helps clarify even some of the sort of different levels of data and efficacy that we see in different populations. So it's certainly a space that we're watching very carefully, both as we move the programs forward and plan our own data disclosures. And I would say that's true for both our G12D program, which is in the clinic now, as well as our PAN KRAS program, which is still preclinical. Like other companies, we think that it's going to be quite helpful to have multiple assets in this space, both the more specific mutant integrator and as well as the PAM. For more, Noah, please chime in on this space. Thanks, Randy.

So, yeah, there definitely have been great learnings over both at scientific conferences and obviously with RevMed's announcements. This is an area of active development, intense development, because of the potential impact for patients. So I think we recognize the transformative, all of us recognize the transformative nature of the first pan-RAS inhibitor, and at least by what's been presented for the implectance as monotherapy and second-line PDAC. What we also recognize is that with that tremendous efficacy, you know, doubling overall survival, there's also toxicity burdens, right? So it's an amazing drug, but patients also are experiencing a lot of toxicity, and maybe this is because of the broad targeting of beyond KRAS, of NRAS and HRAS as well. So this opens the door for folks that are looking at more targeted therapy, whether that means looking at G12D, which represents about 40% of that patient population in PDAC and also about 10% to 15% in CRC and several percent in non-small cell lung cancer, or if you're looking at a PAN-KRAS. And that's why we've chosen to discover and develop drugs in this direction. Now, there's an opportunity for differentiation by more targeting, but also if you can reduce the toxicity that's seen, particularly the skin tox that's seen with the pan-ras, then that also creates the opportunity for broader combinability. So we recognize that there may be opportunities to combine a PAN-KRAS or a G12D targeting agent that doesn't have much skin toxicity with EGFR receptors, which can move you in the CRC direction. And there are opportunities potentially to combine with chemotherapy and use higher doses than a PAN-RAS can use. So we recognize that. We recognize the intense competition in the G12D space. And, you know, that's why we're just keeping our heads down, charging forward, and look forward to sharing data later this year on our G12D program.

Great. Thanks. Maybe if I have time, can I ask one question on the LOG2 program?

Please.

Okay. Thanks. Given the data which you disclosed at the ADPD, it would be important to know kind of the factors which drove the decision to look at the PSP trial from whether it is a mechanistic point of view, whether it is from the biomarker point of view, whether it is from the indication point of view, which might lead to a faster registrational trial. So just wanted to understand what were the thoughts, you know, the strategic thoughts that went inside the decision.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll pass to Noah on the design and thinking about PSP as an indication. On those ADPD data, you know, just to reiterate that, and we talked about it in the prepared remarks, but I really think that what we're doing there is pretty unique, right? What we've been able to show there in terms of both the reduction of LARC2 and also the downstream disease-relevant biomarkers we think really stands apart from what others have shown both preclinically and in the clinic, right? So we're moving downstream biomarkers that we know are important for neuroinflammation and driving the disease in a way that we think is you need a degrader to get to all the functions of R2, which could ultimately be relevant in PSP as well as other diseases. But on PSP-specific, please, Noah. Thanks for the question.

Thanks, I think for all the reasons you highlighted, or all the general areas, indication, mechanism, biomarkers, all of that supports the focus on PSP. Let me be very clear, there's no pivot here. We did a study in Parkinson's disease because those patients are readily available because it is a disease of interest to us, and we could see a long-term opportunity to develop the drug in that space as well. But we chose that initially because it was the most informative next step after a healthy volunteer study to prove some of the biomarker points that are applicable to PSP. So the PSP program has been long in planning. It's a disease of incredible unmet medical need that's rapidly progressive and allows you to identify a more homogeneous population of patients that have rapid progression, significant changes in the PSP rating scale on an annual basis, which means that you can run a study with fewer patients and see the effect of your drug. So from an indication point of view, less unmet medical need, less competition, more homogeneous, and quite a significant indication in its own right because, as we said, it's a rare disease. But at the same time, there are 30,000 patients in the U.S. You can make similar estimates for Europe, obviously, and Asia. So that's the indication side. Mechanistically, same fundamental issue. You have endolysosomal dysfunction. You have degeneration of synapses and circuits in the brain that underlie the disease. And in this particular disease, it's a tau pathology that, you know, rather than something like alpha-synuclein, where I think there's more heterogeneity there, less certainty in the community about how that works to drive disease, There's understanding that the 4R tau in PSP is a driver of this disease, so it's something that we're going to be able to measure as well. And then from a biomarker point of view, we've done the lifting so far now in PD, and that's transferable. So we know that the drug can degrade LARP2 in the brain in a predictable way. We know that we can drive decrease in biomarkers that are associated with that endolysosomal dysfunction that I described earlier that's driving the 4R tau accumulation. And so that allowed us to choose a dose range that we can bring forward for our Phase 1B and our registrational Phase 2 program. Thanks, guys.

Sure. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Miller of Evercore. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my question, and congrats on all the progress. I'd like to focus on the RAS programs as well. You're moving into the expansion cohorts, phase two expansion cohorts. I noticed for the G12D, it seems to be specifically in pancreatic, and I was curious what led to that decision. Obviously, PDAC is arguably the most competitive of the RAS-relevant spaces, and I know you know that the landscape is evolving rapidly there. So what drove you into PDAC specifically? Have you considered doing expansion cohorts in other RAS-relevant indications? And when could we hear more about some of those combo approaches that you mentioned in previous answers? And then on the PAN-K-RAS side, I was really interested to hear and to see the recent publication of the improved synergy with the anti-PD-1s. And I was curious what your thoughts on the mechanism there was why the PAN-K-RAS would have a better or a degrader would have a better synergy with PD-1s than PAN-RAS agents.

John, thanks for the question. We'll do that in three parts. I'll start and then pass the NOAA for PDAC, and then Angela can probably speak best to the PAN and the PD-1. And look, I think it bears repeating, right? So as this space evolves, we're clearly looking at what's changing. What hasn't changed is our preclinical data, right? So our preclinical data gave us reason to believe, you know, based on the data in our hands, that we could be more potent in terms of tumor growth inhibition versus the clinical stage inhibitors and degraders. So that's what we're relying on to think that we could be better. Now, that better could result in durability, preventing resistance. There's also opportunities, as Noah spoke about before, around combinability and tolerability. So I think we'll be looking at all of those things. The other thing that I would say before, Noah, I passed to you on pancreatic, is that when you have a program come along like RevMed has and is going to change the space, it isn't only going to be about can you win head to head. There are going to be new opportunities that are created in that space as the whole, you know, treatment paradigm changes in the years to come. But maybe Noah on PDEC and combos and Angela on PAM. Yeah, thank you, John, for the question.

So let's, so building on Randy's point about the potency, which we saw preclinically. So now that we look at the data from other competitors in the space, we recognize that that potency could be a big deal. We know that Stelis's degrader wasn't able to achieve its originally intended maximal dosing because of DLTs in their phase one study. We know that when a draxin-rasib combined with gemabraxane for their first-line PDAC study, they had to do a dose reduction, right? So all of those types of signals suggest that if you have a drug that can be more potent, you might be able to achieve the target engagement and avoid some of the toxicities that one accumulates when you have to use really high doses. So with that said, we're doing the practical thing. We did our dose escalation. One needs for Project Optimist to choose a recommended phase two or phase three dose, however you want to describe it. So that requires some expansion. And when you do that, and PDAC makes the most sense because it's a monotherapy space. The patients are accessible. The need is there. And I think that's been borne out by the pace of our study so far. Um, we, I don't want to, you know, those are the steps that we've guided to. So I don't want to go beyond that and start talking about other combinations and other indications. Um, but the focus now is to understand what's the best doses monotherapy. Uh, and then from there we could, uh, get into a discussion. Once we disclose that, we can get into a discussion about other directions we can go. Um, I'll turn it to Angela. for the KRAS, please.

Sure. Thanks, John. And thanks for highlighting, you know, our oral pan-KRAS poster at AACR. So we did show that we had differential impact versus Diraxxon in terms of the tumor microenvironment where we saw Diraxxon was inhibiting the T cell function by three different measures, right, functionally. But in the T cell microenvironment, we know that not only are we recruiting T cells, but we're recruiting other cells to the tumor. And so we are seeing greater complete responses because of that alteration that we're seeing in the microenvironment. We did show that we were inducing MHC, so we are inducing antigenicity of the tumor. and stay tuned for more mechanistic information on what's going on in the tumor microenvironment. It's an exciting time for the degrader.

Thanks so much. But, Andrew, just to clarify, it sounded like what you were suggesting is that this is a pan-KRAS effect, where sparing some of the broader activity of diraxin might be the key here, rather than a degrader effect. I'm just curious if it's possible to tease those two things out at this point.

So, just so I understand the question and clarifying, so, right, so we believe that through degradation, right, through both, you know, G12D with 806 or through a pan-KRAS mechanism, that the degrader has a differential effect relative to the KRAS on inhibitor in the tumor microenvironment, and that's exactly what we showed. in our mechanistic study, looking at the tumors themselves in terms of seeing that we're actually recruiting more of a T cell signal, but we're also seeing that we are inducing the antigenicity of the tumors, recruiting more immune cells to the environment, to the tumor microenvironment, and we are seeing greater complete responses. In addition, we also showed the difference between the impact of our molecule in a dose response, a degrader, our degrader, in a dose response relative to the KRAS-On clinical inhibitor in three different T-cell functional acids. So we're not inhibiting the T cell function, whereas Diraxon is.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thank you. One more moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Choi of Goldman Sachs. The line is now open.

Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking our questions, and congrats on all the progress. I want to turn back for a moment to 027 and the Spina-Bulbar Kennedy's disease program, And just curious if you'd maybe provide some context on how it compares to the 766 program for prostate cancer, since both degrade androgen receptors and just sort of its potency and sort of what level of effect may be necessary to get to a clinically meaningful benefit here, in your opinion. That's my first question. And my second question is on Vepenew and just what the latest status or plans are for European and other global filings and just thinking about, you know, how we should model that on the forward here, given it's now partnered to Rigel. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. And for O2-7, for SBMA, that program began earlier in the year, and you're right to remind of the lux-stegalutimide deal we did with Novartis a few years ago for prostate cancer. The key difference between the molecules is that while both degrade AR, 027 was specifically selected for its ability to degrade AR in muscle. So it really gets into muscle well, which is really important. That's the site where we'd like it to be active for the neuromuscular disease of SVMA, not the case for 766 or luxdagalutamide, the one that's for prostate cancer with Novartis. In terms of that and going forward, obviously, we have the U.S. approval. Further regulatory work will be done by Rigel, the new partner. Certainly, we've got an ASR period to get through. After that point, it probably makes sense to connect with Rigel on all questions regarding the future development. We're certainly excited for them to take it over for both commercialization and the potential further development of VELTS.

Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is on the line of Derek Archula of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Good morning. This is Jacob on for Derek. Thanks for taking our question.

I just wanted to clarify, did you say the ARV-102 is on hold in the U.S. but still going ahead ex-U.S.? Effectively, yeah, that's correct. So for 102, right, as Noah said, after filing that IND, you know, we get to the 30-day period and the FDA essentially has two options, either to move forward or to put it on hold. So while that trial has not yet begun in the U.S., we have not dosed any patients in the U.S., technically, yes, it's on hold. The trials that have been going on outside the U.S. are not affected, and the thinking is that as we move forward, you know, speaking with both the FDA and ex-U.S. regulatory authorities, we'll consider down both paths in parallel.

I see. What are the gating factors there for starting in the U.S. versus ex-U.S.?

Why don't I know it?

So essentially a couple of years ago before we started this program, we met with the FDA and we described or we asked them what would be necessary to start in the U.S. At the time, we'd already made a strategic decision to run the Healthy Volunteer and eventually do the Parkinson's disease study in Europe to get the program started. Very common in neuro drug development. They had outlined for us that for chronic treatment, you need to provide the following information. We provided that information, and now they were asking for more than had originally been requested. So we have to get it in order. We'll share it with them. The conversation will continue. Thanks for the caller.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of G. Merkagee of BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks for taking the question.

Just coming back to PSP as an indication, can you remind us how these patients are diagnosed and where they're frequently treated? Are they concentrated at certain centers of excellence? And any views so far on what a potential pivotal study could look like in terms of length and primary endpoints?

Thanks for the question, Jeet. Noah, please. Sure. Yeah, thanks, Jeet. So the patients are typically diagnosed after having been mistakenly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, right? Because you have someone that's coming in with tremor, stiffness, instability. These are common presentations for Parkinson's disease and are also present in PSP. There's kind of a clinical differentiating feature, which is that they have a vertical gaze problem that leads to falls. And there's a clinical management indicator that also drives you in the direction of PSP, which is that patients with Parkinson's disease will be treated with L-DOPA of some kind, and they will show some improvement typically. but when you have a PSP patient, they do not respond to that. So think of it as an initial commonly misdiagnosis unless they present with falls when it would be more obvious and then they have this diagnosis and unfortunately it's a rapidly progressive disease and differentiates from Parkinson's disease in that way and as we said, time from diagnosis to death is five to seven years or so. So that is, now you asked where are the patients treated, there definitely are at some centers of excellence, but it's something that is seen broadly, you know, most, all neurologists will see PSP patients at some points, there are centers that see quite a lot of them. There is a history of running clinical trials at various centers in the U.S. Right now, the only other phase three program that is going to be concurrent with this, it looks like, is Novartis' study, because they've announced an ASO targeting tau that's moving into phase three. And that involves quarterly injections, intrathecal injections of an ASO. We believe that we'll be able to recruit our patients successfully because there's a long track record of global recruitment for PSP trials. And we think there may even be a preference for this type of study. And in terms of endpoints and knowing the size of that study, we've said in broad strokes before, it's a few hundred patients. It will be two dose, presumably two dose levels versus placebo and require a year of treatment.

Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes to the line of Tyler Van Buren of TD County that is now open.

Hey, guys. Thanks very much for taking our question. This is Nick on for Tyler. Moving back to the LARC-2 program, while you are prioritizing PSP for the reasons that you mentioned before, is there anything that you could see in your PSP data at some point that would affect your decision to move forward in Parkinson's disease, or could the Denali LARC-2 inhibitor Phase 2 data later this year support advancement into Parkinson's disease?

I mean, I think the short answer is no in the way that I wouldn't expect. we think that the data we've generated so far in both healthy volunteers and patients with Parkinson's can be translated to both patients with Parkinson's and PSP. So I guess from that perspective, there's certainly we could do in PSP and data that we could see that would give us more confidence in our ability to do what we've already started to show, which is have 102 be an orally available brain penetrant drug that reduces LARC2 right where we wanted to degrade it in deep brain regions. When it comes to the Biogen readout, certainly something we're looking at is a reminder, we're talking about 102 as a degrader here focused on all three aspects of LARC2's function, which we think is important for the reasons that we've already outlined on this call. And so for that reason, we are certainly hopeful that the trial is positive for patients. And we think that if it is, we think we can show a benefit beyond that with the technology that we have. And if it's not, we think that the differentiation that we've already shown both in the clinic with biomarkers as well as preclinically with things like endolysosomal function, the ability to reduce tau, we think there's a lot of data we've already shared that shows how different we are from that program. So we'll be moving ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. one moment for our next question. Our next question comes in line of Akash Tawari of Jeffrey's. Your line is now open.

Hey, this is Mano John for Agash. Just one from our end on ARV806. It seems like you are going with two dose levels pantomized in the phase two trial of ARV806 rather than like just one dose selected from the escalation portion. Just trying to understand the rationale of those two dose levels going pantomized into the phase two And also, what endpoints will kind of finally decide the final dose selection, like ORR or Keras degradation, rollability, or like just trying to understand the rationale then? Thanks.

Yeah, you're right. As we head into the dose expansion, we are planning to explore two doses, which I think is fairly typical in oncology. Noah, anything to add on the design there?

Yeah, all of those factors will go into it, meaning when you do a dose expansion and you're trying to optimize the dose, satisfying for yourself that you have the right dose, but also satisfying the FDA, let's be frank, it's very important for them. you look at all these factors. We'll look at the overall response. We'll look at as much degradation data as we can select. You're looking at the safety and the other indicators of efficacy. So it all goes in there. But I think we're looking at a pretty typical expansion here. Thanks.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question, and Chris online of Lee Watzek of Cancer. Your line is not open.

Hi, team. This is Daniel Brown for Lee. Thank you so much for taking our question. How do you view the patient population in the future for your KRAS programs? I noticed on the KRAS G12 D-degrader, you have so far, based on clinical trials.gov, excluded any pretreatment with KRAS-targeted agents. Do you think you will be developing it in the same phase? Do you think you will be going after PAN-RAS or PAN-KRAS or even targeted KRAS G12D drugs in the future?

Yeah, I think you're highlighting the answer, right, which is that there's a lot of options The most important thing to do first is show that our drug works, right? We need to show that in the phase one we're able to be competitive, and that's what we're looking to do with both the escalation and the expansion. Beyond that, as your question and others have alluded to, there's options in different indication. There's options for monotherapy versus combination. You mentioned KRAS pretreatment. As other programs come onto the market and get used, certainly that's going to create a new opportunity to follow that and other therapies, and we'll have to figure out a way to play in that space. You know, one thing that I've been pretty consistent in saying since taking over the CEO role a few months ago is that we're not interested in producing incremental and Me Too sorts of programs. So it's important for us, especially as a company that has four programs in phase one right now, with a fifth entering in the second half of the year, it's really important that we focus our Venice on where we can play to win and where we can be differentiated. And we need to show that we can be, and as we create that development plan, we'll move forward if we are. So, again, sort of goes back to saying that look forward to sharing those data this year, and that'll be the point to share a bit more on the development plans beyond the initial stages of monetary expansion and escalation.

Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I'll now turn it back to Randy Thiel for closer remarks.

Well, thank you very much, everybody, for joining. I probably can't say this enough, but I really couldn't be prouder of the team and where we are. Just in the past 10 days, 11 days, we've had both the approval of VEP, which is the first ever hetero-bifunctional degrader, ProTac, to get to the market. As I said earlier, it's a very short list of companies that gets to take a program, take a technology all the way from inception to its first approval. Couldn't be prouder of that. working with Pfizer to get the program Vepinu licensed to Rigel for them to launch. Also a huge accomplishment. And, you know, as I reiterated a moment ago, we've got four programs in the clinic. We've shared some data for one already this year, have a couple more coming with some trial starts. So a lot to look forward to, and we look forward to keeping you updated along the way.

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