Operator
Hello, and welcome to Nuvation Bio's first quarter 2026 financial results and corporate update call. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website. All participants are currently in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the prepared remarks. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to J.R. DeVita, Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Nuvation Bio. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Earlier today, we issued a press release summarizing our financial results for the quarter ending March 31, 2026, and providing a business update. The press release is available on the investor section of our website at nuvationbio.com. Today's call includes forward-looking statements, including statements about the therapeutic and commercial potential of Ibtrozi and Safucidinib, our plans for Safucidinib development and future data presentations, 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 quarterly report on Form 10-Q, 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 Shogren, and our Chief Financial Officer, Philippe Sauvage. Now, I'll turn the call over to Dr. David Hung. David, please go ahead.
Thanks, JR. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all for joining us. Today, I'm excited to discuss the progress we've made across our business in the first quarter. Following the line-agnostic FDA approval of Ibtrozi in June 2025, we entered 2026 focused on continuing to build a successful commercial launch in ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer, with specific focus on educating physicians, supporting patients, and generating new clinical evidence that reinforces Ibtrozi's differentiated profile. Overall, we are very pleased with our continued execution, highlighted by strong demand for optrosi and our ability to significantly increase the percentage of new patients treated in the first-line setting. We successfully treated approximately 200 new patients with optrosi in the first quarter, which makes three consecutive quarters of about 200 new patient starts, reports, bringing our total to over 600 since launch. We see a growing trend of more new patients coming from the first-line setting, and in turn, a lower percentage of patients coming from the third-line setting or later. In fact, for the first time since launch, more than half of the new patients who started Ibtrozi in the quarter were TKI-naive. Given the changing dynamics of patient mix and moving from later line to the first-line setting, and considering the significantly increased durability of vitrozi in earlier versus later line settings, we are just beginning to see revenue stock in this quarter, as Philippe will shortly discuss. This revenue dynamic is the most important metric for the launch going forward. Therefore, at some point in the future, we will focus on revenue and no longer report new patient starts. This has meaningful implications for the long-term opportunity for our medicine, especially now given that based on a recent new analysis presented at AACR, IPTROZI has now extended its median duration of response to 50 months in TKI-naive patients in the pooled results from the pivotal trust studies. When patients are treated earlier in the disease course, they are often in a better position to to realize increased benefit from a therapy with durable efficacy and generally favorable tolerability. Over time, we believe this can build a larger, longer duration base of active patients on Iptrozine and support more substantial revenue growth. Since launch, our discontinuations have been driven primarily by disease progression in later line patients. This is expected in any oncology launch as these patients have already progressed through other approved therapies. From the data that we see, discontinuations in earlier-aligned patients or for adverse events are consistent with clinical trial results and remain relatively low. As a reminder, and as detailed in Trozi's prescribing information, 6.5% of the 337 patients with advanced ROS1-positive NSCLC are in our pivotal TRUST studies discontinued therapy due to any adverse reaction. And as we have previously presented, only one of these patients, or 0.3%, discontinued treatment due to any of the six most common adverse events, including liver enzyme elevations, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, or dizziness. The feedback we continue to receive from both key opinion leaders and our sales organization has been highly consistent. Physicians are impressed with Ibtrosi's clinical profile, citing the durability and tolerability, and a real-world experience is giving physicians increased confidence to both keep patients on therapy longer and to choose Ibtrosi when considering a preferred first-line treatment option. This response further supports our belief in both consensus net revenue estimates for Ibtrosi in 2026 and its long-term potential. We are also encouraged by the addition of IPTROZI to the latest CNS and CCN guidelines as a systemic therapy option for ROS1-positive NSCLC patients with brain metastases. We believe this is an important recognition of IPTROZI's demonstrated intracranial activity and further supports its differentiated position in the ROS1 treatment landscape. Turning to our recent abstracts and publications, we were thrilled to present updated pooled results from the August 2025 data cutoff of the TRUST-1 and TRUST-2 studies at the American Association of Clinical Research Congress, or AACR. These updated data continue to reinforce the strength of Iptrosy's profile. In TKI-naive patients in TRUST-1, as recently published in the Journal of clinical oncology, median duration of response and median progression of pre-survival have both now increased to approximately 50 months or more than four years. As presented at AACR in TKI pre-treated patients, the median duration of response was nearly 20 months in TRUST-2 and the overall survival in the pooled TKI pre-treated population showed a median of nearly 30 months, which is unprecedented in this space. And with this longer follow-up, Iptrosy continued to demonstrate a manageable and consistent safety profile, including lower rates of neurologic adverse events and no new safety signals. We believe these durability data matter not only clinically, but commercially. Drugs that combine deep and durable efficacy with a favorable tolerability profile are well positioned to become the therapy of choice for TKI-naive patients, and that is exactly the trend we are seeing in our launch. With approximately three years of follow-up in the pool of analysis and more than four years of follow-up in TRUST-1, we believe these data further supports IPTROZI as an effective, durable, and tolerable treatment option for patients living with advanced ROS1 positive NSCLC. At AECR, we also presented preclinical data, which continues to build on our broader scientific understanding of Iptrosi's differentiated profile. As I discussed on our last earnings call, Iptrosi is designed to achieve deep and durable inhibition of ROS1 while maintaining measured activity against TREK-B. Our presentation showed two important points. First, teletrective has nearly complete coverage of ROS1 fusions at clinically relevant concentrations and is effective against ROS1 resistance mutations. Second, teletrective has partial yet biologically meaningful inhibition of TREK-B while being sufficiently balanced to avoid significant CNS-related adverse events as seen in our clinical trials and real-world experience. Of note, in the same experiment, a TREC-B sparing agent failed to control tumor migration and markers of invasion and metastases, which were well-controlled by teletretinib. These data support the concept that some degree of TREC-B inhibition may be required to inhibit systemic progression, prevent the migration of lung cancer cells, and protect against metastases to the brain. This analysis showed that our medicine may have a mechanistic profile which we believe leads to a potential impact on tumor invasiveness and metastatic behavior in patients while limiting neurologic adverse events. This balanced approach and ability to prevent resistance could ultimately play an important role in the long-term durable control of ROS1-positive lung cancer, as demonstrated in Ebtrozi's median progression-free survival of over four years. At ASCO in June, we will be presenting additional data from our TRUST program on patient-reported outcomes and our ongoing TRUST-4 study in the adjuvant setting. Turning to sacucitinib, we remain very excited about the potential of this program and the opportunity it represents for patients with IDH1 mutant glioma. Beyond its potential clinical importance, we believe Safucidinib could address a broad segment of the glioma market and therefore represent a meaningful long-term value opportunity for the company. Safucidinib is currently being evaluated in the ongoing Phase 3 Sigma study for the maintenance treatment of patients with IDH1 mutant astrocytoma who have high risk features following standard of care and in a non-pivotal cohort with grade three oligodendroglioma following surgery. In phase one and phase two single arm studies, safucitinib has shown very encouraging efficacy signals, including durable responses and prolonged progression-free survival across both low- and high-grade IDH1 mutant gliomas. We think about the glioma market as a pie with four parts. Low-grade, low-risk. Low-grade, high-risk, high-grade, low-risk, and high-grade, high-risk tumors. Today, the only approved glioma drug, voracitinib, is approved in the low-grade, low-risk glioma setting, and prior data have shown limited activity in enhancing or high-risk, high-grade tumors. In contrast, sapucitinib has shown significant activity in clinical studies across all four subgroups of idh1 mutant glioma the safucitinib sigma pivotal trial will target three of the four pieces of the glioma pi enrolling high grade high risk high grade low risk and low grade high risk idh1 mutant glioma patients we're also exploring potential studies to further develop safucitinib in the final piece of the pi low grade low risk glioma and we'll provide an update on our plans later this year. I'd also like to highlight that a November 2025 publication in neuro-oncology summarized the Phase II study of Safucidinib patients with chemotherapy and radiotherapy naive Grade II IDH1 meningliomas as of a March 10, 2023 data cutoff. Strikingly, as of February 2026, 12 of the 27 patients evaluated in this study remained on treatment with a median follow-up more than five years. We believe these data continue to support the potential of Saku syndrome in patient populations with significant unmet need and limited or no FDA-approved targeted treatment options. Importantly, in April, we acquired exclusive rights to Saku syndrome in Japan from our partner, Daiichi Sankyo. With that agreement now complete, we plan to expand the pivotal phase three Sigma study into Japan, continue to advance the global development program, and pursue presentation and publication of longer term phase two data so the scientific community remains current on these findings. Finally, we remain on track to provide an update on our drug drug conjugate platform by the end of the year. Overall, the first quarter confirmed important points for our 2026 outlook. We are seeing solid new patient demand, improving mix toward first-line use, and continued confirmation of Iptrosi's encouraging efficacy and tolerability profile in the real world. We believe these trends position Iptrosi well for long-term success, while we continue to advance a broader pipeline designed to address significant patient needs and create additional future value. With that, I'll turn the call over to Colleen.
Thank you, David, and hello, everyone. We continue to see strong momentum in the launch of Ibtrozi, and we are particularly encouraged by what we have accomplished in just three quarters, especially when viewed against relevant targeted therapy launch analogs. Based on our internal data, we have generated more new patient starts than the prior ROS1 launches combined over the same time period. We believe this early success reflects the compelling clinical profile of Obtrosi and the focused execution of our commercial team. In addition, it represents a strong foundation for long-term value creation. As David mentioned, new patient starts remained robust at approximately 200 for the third quarter in a row, and this included a greater proportion of patients initiating treatment in the first line setting. Importantly, our internal data sources indicate that for the first time, over half of new patient starts in the quarter were TKI naive, compared to approximately 30% in the first full quarter following launch. This continued shift from later line to frontline use is one of the clearest indicators of the strength of the launch and is in line with what we would expect based on typical uptake trends with new oncology agents. This gives us confidence in Obtrosi's long-term trajectory because these patients respond at a higher rate, have the potential to remain on therapy for years, and contribute to a more durable, active patient base over time. This dynamic is also important in understanding the discontinuation patterns we have observed, as we are encouraged by how Ibtrozi's clinical profile has translated to the commercial setting. Discontinuations continue to be concentrated among later line patients, which is expected given the more advanced disease in this population and exposure to multiple prior therapies. As we discussed last quarter, most discontinuations are driven by disease progression in later line patients rather than tolerability. And this dynamic can introduce some variability in near-term revenue even when new patient demand is steady. Importantly, adverse event-related discontinuations remain low and in line with what we observed in clinical trials, reinforcing the strong overall clinical profile of obtrose, including its favorable tolerability. Taken together, these observations, along with feedback from both patients and physicians, reinforce our view that Obtrosi is well-positioned to serve patients across the ROS1 lung cancer treatment landscape and has not changed our view of the potential for Obtrosi in this setting. This increasing strength in patient mix and positive real-world feedback on Obtrosi's treatment profile is matched by expanding adoption across both academic and community settings. We are especially encouraged by the pace of uptake we are seeing, particularly given that ROS1 is a rare disease and the prescriber base is relatively broad. Our commercial efforts continue to translate into strong physician awareness, which we believe is a meaningful indicator of successful launch execution. Based on our most recent market research, aided awareness of Obtrosi among target positions has reached 97%, underscoring the breadth of our commercial reach and the growing visibility of Obtrosi in the market. We understand that academic and community customers have different needs, and we have been deliberate in aligning our commercial strategy with the distinct value drivers for each setting. As a result, 100% of the top 50 historical TKI accounts in the country have prescribed iptrozate. Our broad account adoption is another important indicator of launch strength. And when paired with favorable placement on pathways and formularies, it reinforces our belief that institutions recognize the differentiated clinical profile of Ibtrozi. We believe the launch progress we have seen to date also reflects the strength of a team that knows how to win in targeted oncology. We are seeing our efforts translate into meaningful account and physician traction. The result, an appreciation for the durability that Ibtrozi has to offer and the openness to partnering with Nuvation Bio. Taken together, we believe this positions us well to continue building momentum and capture the full ROS1 market over time. Lastly, we believe there is meaningful opportunity to increase the number of ROS1-positive patients who are diagnosed and treated with a ROS1 TKI today. Publications and data from the field suggest there should be approximately 3,000 patients with advanced ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer diagnosed annually in the U.S. based on DNA testing. As the field shifts to using RNA and DNA-based testing together, which may detect an additional 30% effusions, the annual addressable population could expand to approximately 4,000 patients. Unfortunately, although effective testing is better in most academic centers, it is currently significantly lower in parts of the community, including below 50 percent in some centers. To combat this, we have implemented several initiatives to partner with and educate the community on the importance of testing for oncogenic drivers. We strongly believe all patients should have the opportunity to benefit from the prolonged durability and high response traits IPTOSI has shown in the first-line setting, consistent with the NCCN guidelines issued last year. Improving patient identification is the right thing to do for patients and will be a key driver of long-term value for innovation bio. Overall, we are encouraged by the level of demand we are seeing, the shift towards earlier line use, and the strength of the launch execution to date. The medical community recognizes that Obtrosi's long durability gives physicians an important tool and offers patients the potential for long-lasting benefit with a generally favorable safety profile so they can stay on therapy for years. With an experienced commercial team, a clear strategy, and disciplined execution across the launch, we believe we are well-positioned to continue building momentum and support the long-term success of Obtrose. Now, I'll turn it over to Philippe.
Thanks, Colleen, and good afternoon, everyone. For detailed first quarter 2026 financials, please refer to our earnings press release, which is available on our website. Now, I will allot a few key points from the quarter. In the first quarter, we generated $83.2 million in total revenue, including $18.5 million in IPTROZE net US product revenue. This represents 18% growth in net product revenue from the prior quarter, which was not only driven by yet another quarter of about 200 new patient starts, but, importantly, from a growing population of active patients remaining on iptrosi due to increasing frontline use. As you can see on this slide, the number of patients starting iptrosi in the last three quarters has been consistent. However, due to the percentage of first-line patients increasing from approximately 30% in the third quarter last year to approximately 40% in the fourth quarter last year to now more than 50%, net product revenue has grown from $7.7 million to $15.7 million to now $18.5 million, in spite of an expected uptick in growth to net. We expect this trend to continue and also expect the number of new patient starts to increase as more U.S. physicians become aware of hiptrosi and testing rates in the community continue to improve. As previously mentioned, our long-term success will be driven by the exceptional duration of response of iptrosis in the first-line setting, and we are pleased that a growing number of TKI-NA patients have started our medicine since the early months of our launch. This trend, combined with our ability to grow revenue despite later-line patients dropping off iptrosis, demonstrates the potential impact of revenue stacking going forward. Lastly, as I noted, while we did see an expected uptick in gross-to-date discounts at the start of the year, we still expect our gross-to-date expansion to gradually stabilize from here. In addition to product revenue, we recognize $64.7 million in collaboration and license revenue in the quarter, including an upfront payment of nearly $60 million from ASI, personal to our partnership, which was announced in January. We also received approximately $1.7 million in royalty payments from our partnerships in Japan and China, both of which are exceeding initial expectations on a new patient start on net revenue basis. As a reminder, teletrectinib was listed in China's National Reembursement Drug List, or NRDL, in January, and since then, sales from Innoven's launch have increased rapidly. We believe this significant commercial uptake is due to a greater appreciation for effective testing in China, and also believe this rate of adoption will translate to the U.S. market as patient identification improves over time. We continue to invest in our business and in our programs, resulting in total operating expenses of $73.5 million for the quarter. R&D expenses were $35 million, driven by increased investment in the SGMA and Trust Clinical Studies, and SG&A expenses were $38.3 million, primarily driven by commercialization activities. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $533.7 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. In addition, $50 million remains available under our existing term loan agreement with Sagard Healthcare Partners through June 30th. We also expect to receive a milestone payment of approximately $30 million from ASI upon the approval of IPTROSI in Europe in the first half of 2027. Lastly, on the business development front, we announced our partnership with ASI in January to commercialize IPTROSI in Europe and other territories outside of China and Japan, plan, which we discussed on our previous running calls. In April, we also announced an agreement with IHC Sankyo to acquire rights to Safu Sedanib in Japan. This transaction made sense to us from a strategic and financial perspective, as it allowed us to fully secure global rights to Safu Sedanib, including ownership of all clinical data and rights to future publications and data generation, without changing our expected cash runway. Acquiring full global rights will reinforce the speed of execution and now allow us to expand our commercial reach to Japan. I'd like to thank Daiichi Sankyo for their efforts in developing Safuisei Denib and for their confidence in us to take the program forward to our potential global regulatory approvals. Overall, our capital position continues to provide us with the flexibility to support the IPTOSI launch, advance our pipeline, and evaluate additional strategic opportunities, all while maintaining a disciplined approach to spending. We continue to believe we are well positioned to execute on our priorities without the need for additional external financing given on our current review trajectory and operating plan. And no turning back to David for closing remarks.
Thanks, Philippe. As we move through 2026, we remain focused on discipline execution, continue to build on the momentum of the launch, advancing our clinical and scientific understanding of IPTROZI, and progressing our broader pipeline. I want to thank our team for their continued commitment and our investigators, partners, shareholders, and most importantly, patients and their families for their ongoing support. I'll now ask the operator to open the line for questions.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Farzin Haq with Jeffries. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Congrats on the progress, and thank you for taking my question. Can you comment on whether the growing first-line patients are coming from the academic or the community settings? And then, what specific educational field force initiatives are being implemented to accelerate adoption in the high-volume community settings?
Hey, Farzan. It's Colleen. I'll take that one. So, you may have heard me mention that, first of all, we're very encouraged. We have about 97 percent awareness right now, you know, across. And this is uniform adoption of a trophy across both academic and community. And most importantly, when we look at it historically, the top RAS1 accounts, which we have a historical list of about 50 of those accounts, 100 percent of them, in fact, have prescribed. So we're seeing broad adoption across all channels, academic, IDN and community. And really, we believe that that just speaks directly to the oncologists that are driven by the clinical evidence and EFTROZI's trust data. It's so compelling that in each channel, we're seeing really, really good uptake and adoption. And on your second question, you asked about specific initiatives. Are you talking about adoption there? Do you want me to go in more of that? Which kind of initiatives are you looking for me to answer?
Right. adoption and basically use over the chemo-io agents?
Yeah, you know, I would say that one of the things, Farhan, that we really are focused on is testing rates. And, you know, this is a real challenge, and I'll say that we're not dismissive of it, but we're also not passive about this. And the gap between really academic and community testing is very well documented. And frankly, in some of the community centers, we're seeing testing rates that still remain below 50 percent. So, in our opinion, that's unacceptable from a patient care standpoint, and it represents just a really meaningful community opportunity. So, what really gives us confidence is that we do have a targeted strategy in place. So, we're partnering directly with community oncology practices. We're investing in a lot of educational initiatives, and we're also directly working with testing platforms to make sure that, in fact, comprehensive molecular testing is the standard of care and not the exception. So we believe in this market. We believe in the size of the market. We do believe and have acknowledged that we have an issue with testing that we're addressing directly.
Hi, Farron. This is David. Just to add a little more precision to the question you asked, you know, the youth getting first-line patients really depends on them being diagnosed. And as Colleen mentioned, while we have great awareness in both community and academic centers. The testing rates are higher currently in academic centers and community centers, and therefore the diagnosis of new patients are right now hiring academic centers because that's where more testing is being done. But we've already seen significant improvement in multiple community centers, and we are very heartened by that improvement in testing rates and the awareness that there's a drug that's, you know, highly efficacious, durable, and well-tolerated to use when those diagnoses are made. So we're pretty excited about this change. We've seen in first-line percentage, as we mentioned, you know, 20 or 30% in the first quarter after launch to about 40% now to over 50%. You know, that's a pretty exciting growth trajectory for us, because we think that's going to allow us to meet our consensus guidelines for the year, if that were to continue.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Leonid Timoshev with RBC Capital Market. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys, for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on that a little bit. just maybe trying to better understand the dynamic of the new patient starts. I mean, it seems like it's been 200 for the past three quarters. And, you know, you've laid out a lot of, you know, reasons why there should be growing awareness, better testing. But I guess I'm just trying to better understand why that hasn't pulled through into more new patient starts yet. You know, for example, why you weren't seeing why the proportion is changing towards first line, but you're not necessarily also seeing more of the later line patients coming on as well. I mean, whether there's a bottleneck somewhere, if this is something that can be helped by expanding the sales force and, you know, hitting more prescribers, you know, just if you can talk about the pandemic, that'd be great.
Yeah, it's a great question, but the main reason is because, remember, in our early quarters of our launch, we're getting mainly late-line patients, third-line, fourth-line, fifth-line patients. Those patients can discontinue therapy in literally a month or two, and when you see very late-line patients, they drop out very quickly, unfortunately, to pursue other therapies or they unfortunately pass away. So the reason that you see right now what appears to be a plateau, it's not. It's just that the late-line patients are dropping out very quickly. We're getting new line patients, but those are incidents. Remember that the prevalence pool has already been diagnosed. So when they enter the study, they're much easier to find because they've already had a RAS when diagnosed. They've already been on therapy, but they don't stay on very long and they drop out very quickly. The new patients are newly diagnosed. I mean, the first line patients have to be newly diagnosed, and that's an incidence pool, which obviously takes longer time. So when you see what's happening now, the fact that we're getting from 30% to 40% to now over 50% first line, we are finding those first line patients, but the third, fourth, fifth line patients are dropping off rapidly. That should stabilize because eventually we're going to deplete that whole pool. In fact, we think we've already captured a significant amount of the late line patients. So now that's why we're really focused on first line. That's all that really matters given the fact that we now have a PFS or DOR of more than four years, 50 months, which is, you know, there's no drug even within a year of that. We think that that's going to lead to revenue stacking that will really start to kick in, and we're just seeing that this year. So even in spite of a quarter with roughly the same number of new patient starts, and in spite of an increase in GTN, revenue still went up 18 percent. So we're just starting to see the beginnings of that, but we think that if we were just to keep the same growth rate in first-line patients that we've seen in the last from Q3 to Q4, Q4 to Q1, we think that we should make our consensus for the year comfortably.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Kaveri Pullman with Clear Street. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. So maybe a question on, you know, the repeat prescription. I believe And any details you can provide on, you know, the previous call mentioned the academic was 70% versus 30% distribution for academic versus community. But today's call also mentioned that 100% of top 50 accounts have prescribed EFTRO-Z, which I assume are mostly community-based. So any insight you can provide there. And, you know, if you can also tell us, you know, how this NCCN-CNS guideline inclusion helps you get more of the first-line adoption. And then, you know, my follow-up question is quick on the previous comments you made regarding lower testing rates in the community setting. So are these rates simply lower because of lack of awareness regarding the importance of testing, or there could be some other hurdles that could take longer period for changes to happen?
Hey, Kaveri. It's Colleen. So what I can tell you, a couple things that I think we need to keep in mind. So when we look at across these top historical accounts, and we're looking at 100% of those 50 accounts have now written, We see a much greater, I would say, usage by community, IDN, and now academic. And you're right. When we first launched, we saw a real fast uptake in the academics. Now we're seeing just as much strength in the uptake across other channels, and especially in the community. And one of the things that we've seen when we first launched, obviously, the academic oncologists, right, they're driven by the clinical evidence. And Amtrosi's trust data speaks to that directly. And we look now at the community oncologists and what they need, right? They need the practical support, the reimbursement pathways, patient support programs, and the confidence of their patients can tolerate the therapy over time. They're now seeing all of that. They're seeing the surround sound of Nuvation Connect. They're seeing reimbursement pathways that have now taken effect. They're seeing our patient support programs. So, we believe that that's directly linked now to the channel of community really increasing their uptake and identifying patients. The other thing you asked about was the testing. And, you know, one thing I want to say is that we know that our accounts are increasingly prioritizing the flagging of these mutation statuses. And as RNA-based testing continues to gain ground alongside with using DNA, we know that more ROS1-positive patients are starting to be identified each month and every year. So we're laying that groundwork in terms of education, and we know that's now positioning of Trozi to benefit as these identification rates improve. So we're seeing the educational part of our efforts really taking traction in the community. I will also say we're educating on effective testing rates, making sure that our oncologists are waiting until they get all the oncogenic driver testing back to make a treatment decision. That's what we talk about influencing effective testing rates.
And Kaveri, let me add one more thing to ask your question about the NCCN CNS guidelines. The reason that's so important is actually, it turns out that one of the most widely used previous TKS harassment is cruzotinib. Cruzotinib doesn't even get to the brain. Now we have guidelines from the NCCN that specifically they call out the CNS profile of Ibtrozi, and that contrasts even more starkly against chryzotinib's complete absence of brain penetration. So as you know, 36% of ROS1 begins in the brain at first diagnosis, and then another 50% will progress in the brain upon first progression. So it literally would be medical malpractice to give a drug that is not seen as penetrant and not only is it chose the highly seen as penetrant if you look at our integrated response rate even in the second line setting even in the most difficult to treat patients our integrated response rate is 66 which is so far the highest recorded integrated response rate of any tki in in the pre-treated space and that's independent of our unmatched durability and response in the first-line setting. So we think that the new NCC and CNS guidelines make it even more imperative that doctors need to give patients the right therapy, which is zeptrosis.
And Kaveri, just to add on that, to put an exclamation point on that point by David, we've already received early feedback from HCPs that this will only enhance zeptrosis profile and really impact their treatment decision.
Very helpful. This has a lot of exclamation points. Thank you so much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Renza with Truist Security. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Greg, good afternoon, David and team. Congrats on the progress and results today, and thanks for taking my question. David, maybe I'll just stay with Ebtrosian and add another question on this topic. A competitor recently presented some data suggesting activity in patients previously treated with talatratinib is there. I'm just curious, how would you expect treating physicians to interpret such results? Would you see this influencing sequencing decisions or the positioning with LigTrozi as compared to competing or potential agents in the market? Thanks so much.
Yeah, I think it actually does have some implications. So, first of all, you know, we are delighted that new treatment options are becoming available for patients as they fail therapy, but if you look at Eptrozzi's efficacy with a response rate of 90 percent and now a PFS of more than five, you know, more than four years, almost 50 months, there is nothing close to it in the first-line space. Reprotractinib's PFS is 36 months, so you're still talking about almost a year and a half difference. If you look at the second-line setting, you know, now with a DOR approaching at 20 months, and again, a response rate in second line of 56 percent without excluding any orthogenic drivers, and an intracranial response rate of 66 percent, again, without excluding any orthogenic drivers, that there are no aides today that can claim any numbers that match those. So when a competitor has data in the third line setting showing responses after if TROSI fails in the second line setting, we're delighted that patients have another option in the third line setting. And I will refresh your memory. I think the competitor you're referring to actually got breakthrough designation in the third line setting, while Leptrosi got breakthrough designation in the first and second line setting. We think things are playing out the way FDA initially saw them, which is that Leptrosi will be used in the first and second line setting, and we think other agents are needed in the third line setting, and we welcome that because that's what patients need.
That's great. Thanks, David. Appreciate the caller.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Mayank Memtani with B. Riley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, team. Thanks for taking our questions. And maybe just to build on the prior point of, you know, how APROZI is being now, you know, considered relative to Crizardinib and maybe the entrenched position could be protected, you know, with additional market entering. How much is the development of new CNS meds relevant, you know, to the clinicians you talk to? And then if you are able to comment also on the, you know, dose interruption reductions that are tracking in the frontline patients versus what you may have seen in the later lines. And then I have a follow-up.
Yeah, so that's a great question. And so ROS1 non-small lung cancer is a really aggressive disease, not only because the tumors grow aggressively, but because where they go. So more than a third of the time, they already are in the brain when you even make your first diagnosis. And 50% of the cases, upon progression, the brain is the first site of tumor metastasis. That makes it imperative that you get CNS coverage as quickly as possible with an agent that has proven and long-term efficacy. As I said, the intracranial response rate of vitrozi in the second-line setting is 66%, and our duration of response in the second-line setting is 20 months with the now overall survival of almost three years. So, in the second-line setting, there are no agents today that have published any data that come close to that. In the first-line setting, it's completely, you know, a universal difference. There's no agent remotely within IPTROZI's 90 percent response rate and 50-month PFS. So I think TNS is important, and because TNS is so important, that's the reason that IPTROZI is being adopted so quickly, especially in the first-line setting, as clinicians know They need an agent that covers the brain. They need to see proven data that this drug has durability, and our 50-month durability is unprecedented. So that's the reason that we're getting such adoption in the first-line setting. And also still significant use in the second-line setting. You know, as I said, we've probably captured the majority of patients already in the second-line-plus setting. So, I think that, you know, that would be expected, and that's what we're seeing. Now, to get onto your question about discontinuations and interruptions, the great thing about this drug is it's pretty well tolerated, and as we said on the call script, we are not seeing anything new that we haven't seen in the clinical trials, and that's really important because the thing you always worry about with any drug is that will real-world experience parallel your clinical trial experience. Oftentimes in the clinical trial experience, when you're under the careful supervision of the principal investigators and, you know, they may control those patients better. So sometimes in the real world, you don't see metrics that's exactly parallel what you would hope for based on your clinical trial. In our case, we have seen no new developments. What we are We're really encouraged by that probability of epidemiology is pretty much exactly what we saw in the clinical trials. Our dose reduction interruption rates are pretty much what we saw in clinical trials. Our efficacy is too late, too early to see now how long these patients will last. We expect in the last 50 months in the first-line setting, 20 months in the second-line setting, just like reflecting clinical trials. So overall, the great news for us is no surprises. We feel very confident in what we're seeing or what we're hearing from physicians echoes I think that the update that we've seen and the growth in the first-line setting we're seeing are all consistent with the fact that our data in the real-world setting are as good as they were in the clinical trial setting.
Very helpful, David. Thank you for that comprehensive answer. And then just on a go-forward basis, I understand new patient ads not a very relevant metric. What should we focus on? Should we get more updates on the proportion of, you know, first-line patients? Would you have some information on durability? I understand gross to net. You have some thoughts. Just help us think about, you know, the modeling beyond 2026. And I understand everyone's focused on 2026, but I just wanted to get some color on how you're thinking about metrics on a go-forward basis. Thank you for taking attention.
Yeah, we're very excited by the dynamics there. And I think what we've said again and again is that we see a profile which is very similar to a clinical trial, which means that patients, especially first-line patients, will down drop for a very long time. That's why we shared some more information on this, because we think this is really the driver of our long-term potential. And if you look at our story there in the past few quarters, I mean, we grew this first-line patient number by 35% from Q3 to Q4. We grew again by 35%, roughly Q1 to Q4. And if we keep increasing at that rate, we will hit consensus. And if we do better than that, if we accelerate further, we will beat consensus. So everything there is really happening as we thought it would, which is really, really encouraging. And to the question that I heard earlier about the stability you can see, well, it's because you have, like, two different mechanisms going on. You have those first-line patients increasing again and again, as I said, 35% from Q3 to Q4, 35% again, Q4 to Q1. on and we expect to expect it to keep increasing over time and at the same time we have this pool of late-line patients where unfortunately many of them will not stay on drugs but this pool is limited and that's why this is as a total relatively stable but looking ahead and looking forward really what is important for us is really this build up of first-line patients and we'll keep talking about that because we know that's where is the promise of intrudy incredible tolerability, incredible durability, and all of that together to help patients stay on drugs for a long time and to help ourselves progress quarter after quarter. So that's really what we see. We think that's what's going to drive ourselves forward further. And to your point about GTN, I think, again, we hinted about that in our past quarter. Q1, typically, because of our price increase, you will have a rise of GTN driven by the fact that Medicaid and 340B price are stable, as we know. So when you're higher than inflation, and we were, that drives your GTN a little bit You also see in the launch that the 340B use gradually progress a little bit until it's stabilized, typically in an oncology launch. So for all of these reasons, our GTN has raised a little bit by a few percent this quarter. We still believe it's going to stabilize, and this is nothing, you know, abnormal there. Again, as I said, no surprise. No surprise on our GTN. No surprise on our patients. No surprise on our OPEC. Everything is happening exactly like we said.
Very helpful. Thank you for that.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Yaren Verber with TD Cohen. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you so much, and thanks for all the detail. Just a couple of questions. If we're looking at the number of patients, let's say that you started each quarter, like the 30 and then 40 and, let's say, greater than 50 percent who are new, it looks like really an increasing number of patients now are going to be sort of in the naive setting, right, or treatment-naive patients. And so can you give us maybe a sense kind of what percentage of those now are treatment naive as a percentage of the total? Just some thoughts. And then gross to net, should we sort of assume that you're going to be in the high 20s and that's kind of where you're going to stabilize this year, Philippe? Or I think it was kind of in the 25% last quarter.
Yeah, so on your first question, yes, that's exactly what you're saying. increase of first-line patients quarter to quarter, and we expect these first-line patients to come on drugs to keep increasing over the year. As I said, if we stay on the same rhythm of plus 35% roughly every quarter, that takes us to consensus. If we go beyond that, that will help us to get consensus. So that's the dynamic here. So your point about patients on drugs today, you know we have limitations in our data, so it's kind of hard to answer to that question. But, you know, you can run your own estimate based on our first-line patients. It's a very good profitability profile, plus what we said about late-line or first-line. To the point about – I think your second question was about GCN. Yes, it's pretty mechanical if you think about it. So you have an increase of 340B, and if you look at the CPI use, the index rate for inflation between June, the time we launched, and December, you can see it's pretty much aligned. So for all our 340B and Medicaid patients, this basically drive our gross-to-net higher by the amount of our price increase. That makes sense to you all. So if you think about that, yes, we will be around 30, and we expect to stabilize around that level, but gradually inflation starts to eat on inflation penalties. That makes sense. And I can elaborate if it's not here to you all. So that's where we are, and we think, again, it's very much aligned with what we said in the previous quarter. Really no surprise there.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Boris Peeker with Jones Trading. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Just want to understand, how is the duration of therapy in some of these first-line patients compare to your expectation based on the clinical trial results?
So, I mean, it's so early now. you know we we they're they're clearly staying on way longer because that's why our our revenues are going up and that's why our you know our as we would expect but you know we expect them to be on for an average of over four years so we won't know until we get to the fourth year but i think we feel very confident that if you look at the discontinuations as colleen said earlier almost all of our discontinuations are from late late late live patients not early live patients just as we would expect.
And as we mentioned earlier, you know, side effects profiling is exactly aligned, so there is no reason for a scientist to stop it right.
Got it. And with the recently addition to NCCN guidelines, is there – can you see an inflection with Like, can you see how much that really benefited, or is that kind of just in the background and it's not something that could be noticed?
You know, I think that it's just – there's always lag in this stuff. So, you know, the first NCCN change was a year ago, and it took a while for practices to actually realize that IO is actually contraindicated in this disease. We're just starting to see some practice shifts there. That's, you know, that's a year after that guideline came out. So, these CNS guidelines are great. The awareness is already pretty high that RAS one is a brain tropic disease. So, I think the guidelines, the impact of these guidelines might be appreciated a little bit earlier than the original one. And I know with I.O. is a pretty ingrained practice in many centers, but everyone knows that when you get a frame that you're not going to do well. So I think I'm guessing that the NCCN guidelines will be appreciated maybe a little sooner. But it's all good direction for us because everything the NCCN is saying is basically taking proceeds.
Great. And lastly, do you expect to issue annual sales guidance sometime this year?
You know, I think we're getting to the point where we now have hundreds of patients under our belt, and when we see growth the way we're seeing it, I think we would probably be willing to issue guidance at some point in the future.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
Your final question comes from the line of Sylvan Turkin with Citizens Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, how's it going? This is Josh on for Sylvan. Thanks for taking my questions. congrats on the results here. Seems like we've gotten a lot of color on the CNS efficacy, but maybe can we get the team's perspective on the comparison of talitrectinib and CNS maybe to emerging clinical candidates rather than what's already been improved? What do we know here? And maybe not to be too repetitive, but how does the CNS and CCN guideline reinforce the benefit here?
Well, I mean the nearest competitor that's not yet approved has so far an intracranial response rate of 45% while excluding opogenic drivers. Ours is 21 percentage points higher than that at 6% without excluding opogenic drivers. That's all I can say about the CNS data that are available today for competitors. So if you look at our intracranial responses compared to the approved TKI's, is far higher than that. But even compared to up-and-coming competitors, as I said, there's no one close so far on the Ukrainian response rate in the second-line setting.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Yee with UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Speaker 7
Hey, guys. This is Matt on for mic. Thanks for squeezing us in. I just wanted to ask a quick one on the IDH1 program. Could you just remind us what the standard of care is there in that high-grade gamma setting and then speak to what PFS would be clinically meaningful both in the broader population and then also on that ORR readout that could come maybe next year in a subset of patients. What would a good result look like and what could next steps be in that smaller subset and just try to think through any kind of nearer term milestones for of the IDH1 program. Thanks so much.
So, you know, the SIGMA trial is a placebo-controlled study. So, given the fact that there's absolutely nothing approved for the management of high-grade glioma, the management of high-grade glioma today is surgery for tumor debulking, radiation, and chemo. And as you know, the patients don't do well when they have multiple surgeries. You can't just keep debulking the tumor since it's in the brain chemo and radiation are just not effective with very very low response rate so um our our for a response rate we would be looking anything north of 20 you know it we think that uh anything north of 20 for uh indication that has absolutely no other therapies would be uh certainly uh a response we would go to fda and have a discussion about approval pathway. So we feel pretty good about that, especially given the data that we've presented so far. For gray 3, olive oil, dendrite leoma, those are less aggressive than the gray 4 astrocytomas, which are GBM. So we would expect response rates to be even higher because it's a little bit of an easier indication to treat. And again, I would say anything north of 20%, we would think the FDA would be pretty interested, given the fact that there's nothing even in grade three oligodentral glioma. So we think anything in that range would be potentially an approvable pathway.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to David for closing remarks.
Well, we just wanted to thank you all for your support. We're really excited about what we are seeing with the IPTOSI launch, and it's gone pretty much the while we'd hoped and we continue to to you know we can't wait for our next quarter because we'd love to report our next quarter earnings and we hope that you'll follow us with great enthusiasm and thank you very much this concludes today's call Thank you for attending.
Operator
You may now disconnect.