Prepared remarks
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Corcept Therapeutics Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you would like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press *1 again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I would like to introduce your host for today's program, Atabak Mokari, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, everyone. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the second quarter and providing a corporate update. A copy is available at corcept.com. Our complete financial results will be available when we file our Form 10-Q with the SEC. Today's call is being recorded. A replay will be available at the Investors Past Events tab of our website. Statements during this call other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements based on our plans and expectations that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which might cause actual results to be materially different from those such statements express or imply. The risks and uncertainties that may affect our forward-looking statements are described in our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available at the SEC's website. Please refer to those documents for more information. We disclaim any intention or duty to update forward-looking statements. Our revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was $256 million, a 32% increase over the prior year period. Korlym and authorized generic product revenue were $208.6 million. Lifyorli product revenue was $47.6 million in its first quarter of availability. We expect growth to continue and have increased our 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion. Net income was $43 million in the second quarter of 2026, compared to net income of $35 million in the prior year period. Please note that our operating expenses in the second quarter were flat to the first quarter of 2026. Our cash and investments at June 30 were $545 million. I will now turn the call over to Sean Maduck, President of our Endocrinology division. Sean?
Thanks, Atabak. Our Cushing's syndrome business continues to experience strong demand. The second quarter saw a record number of new prescriptions and first-time prescribers. We have never had more patients receiving our medications or more active prescribers. Our growth is due to physicians increasing awareness that hypercortisolism is a serious disease that is more prevalent than previously understood. Hypercortisolism is underdiagnosed because its signs and symptoms, such as difficult-to-treat diabetes or resistant hypertension, are the same as those of other more common conditions. Tens of millions of people have diabetes or hypertension or both. But those patients whose conditions are being driven by hypercortisolism have often been missed. That is especially important because hypercortisolism-induced hyperglycemia or hypertension responds poorly, if at all, to conventional pharmacotherapy. A drug that reduces excess cortisol activity is required to treat these patients. As clinical practice adapts to this critical insight, screening for and treatment of Cushing's syndrome will continue to increase, as will the number of patients receiving our medications. Our landmark CATALYST and MOMENTUM trials have increased physician awareness of hypercortisolism. CATALYST showed that 24 percent of patients with difficult-to-treat diabetes had hypercortisolism and that treatment with Korlym led to substantial reductions in hemoglobin A1c, excess body weight, and waist circumference. MOMENTUM screened more than 1,000 patients with high blood pressure that was not controlled despite concurrent use of three or more antihypertensive medications, a condition known as resistant hypertension, and found that 27 percent of these patients had hypercortisolism. In patients with both resistant diabetes and resistant hypertension, the prevalence of hypercortisolism was even higher: 39.7 percent in CATALYST and 32.6 percent in MOMENTUM. These paradigm-shifting findings will take time to fully be incorporated into medical practice, a process that is only just beginning. CATALYST results were published in the field's leading journal, Diabetes Care, in 2025 and were referenced in the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, or AACE, guidance documents for the management of diabetes in March of this year. MOMENTUM's results are also recent. We first presented them at the annual conference of the American College of Cardiology, or ACC, in March, and again at the American Diabetes Association, or ADA, annual scientific sessions in June. The results will be published in a major medical journal later this year. That being said, CATALYST and MOMENTUM results are becoming more widely known, and doctors are acting upon them. Screening for and treatment of Cushing's syndrome is increasing, and with it, the number of patients being treated with our medications. We expect this trend to continue, propelling our current Cushing's syndrome business to at least $2 billion in annual revenue by the end of this decade. Relacorilant's availability, which should occur shortly after the December 17 PDUFA date assigned to its resubmission, will accelerate this growth. With the addition of relacorilant, we expect that our Cushing's syndrome annual revenue will grow to between $3 billion and $5 billion in 2030. I will now turn the call over to Roberto W. Vieira, President of our Oncology division.
Thanks, Sean. With Lifyorli's launch, it is one of the strongest ever for an oncology medication. The FDA approved Lifyorli on March 25, nearly four months ahead of its PDUFA date. A few days after that, on April 1, we sold our first Lifyorli capsules. Revenue for the first quarter was $47.6 million. Our success has been driven in large part by Lifyorli's compelling clinical characteristics. Patients with ovarian cancer had few good treatment options. This is especially true for those with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. They and their physicians are excited to have a new treatment backed by strong efficacy data, a very manageable safety profile, convenient oral administration, and no biomarker requirement. Accordingly, Lifyorli is on its way to becoming a new standard of care. Payer coverage for Lifyorli has been excellent. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, or NCCN, guidelines listed Lifyorli as a preferred regimen just 15 days after approval, an unusually quick action that has supported broad insurance coverage and accelerated physician adoption. As of today, more than 70 percent of the combined Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial lives had formal coverage policy for this year in place. More than 1,300 patients have now started treatment with Lifyorli, a number that continues to grow every day. Demand has come from gynecologic, medical, and hematology oncologists, academic and non-teaching hospitals, as well as community oncology clinics across the country. As of today, more than 1,000 doctors have prescribed Lifyorli to at least one patient, and an increasing number of physicians are receiving prescriptions for multiple patients. While we are extremely pleased with Lifyorli's rapid uptake, we are just getting started. In the near term, we expect to reach more physicians at more oncology practices, large and small. We also expect physicians to prescribe Lifyorli more frequently as they gain experience with the drug. Those efforts alone should grow Lifyorli's annual revenue in the United States to more than $1 billion.
Thank you, Roberto. And thank you everyone for joining us. Since our founding, Corcept has worked to discover and develop molecules that harness glucocorticoid receptor, or GR, antagonists to treat serious diseases. We have made important progress.
Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Your program will resume momentarily.
Okay. We are back. You may proceed. I apologize. I apologize to everyone. We had a drop in the telephone line, but I will start my section again. Thank you, Roberto, for your oncology update. And thank you everyone for joining us. Since our founding, Corcept has worked to discover and develop molecules that harness glucocorticoid receptor, or GR, antagonists to treat serious diseases. We have made important progress. It is now established that hypercortisolism is much more prevalent than previously believed and that modulating cortisol's activity can help many patients. With Lifyorli's unprecedented uptake as a treatment for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, it is eye-catching and is an important step to proving that GR antagonism can help treat many types of solid tumors, and our plans go well beyond Cushing's syndrome and oncology. Relacorilant's new drug application, NDA, in Cushing's syndrome is based on the positive outcome of our pivotal Phase 3 GRACE trial with confirmatory evidence from our double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 GRADIENT trial, our long-term extension study, and our earlier-stage development data. Collectively, these results show that patients treated with relacorilant experienced meaningful, durable improvements in the signs and symptoms of Cushing's syndrome and without the serious adverse events associated with the currently approved medication: hypokalemia, endometrial hypertrophy, vaginal bleeding, adrenal insufficiency, or QT prolongation. To say that we were disappointed when we received a complete response letter at the end of last year is an understatement. At our meeting with the FDA in April, the agency requested additional analyses of the data in our original NDA submission. We completed those analyses, and based on their results, we resubmitted our NDA on June 17. The FDA accepted our resubmission and has assigned it a PDUFA date of December 17, 2026. It is important to make relacorilant available as soon as possible. As Sean said, the CATALYST and MOMENTUM studies are changing medicine. As screening for hypercortisolism becomes the norm rather than the exception in patients with resistant diabetes and hypertension, many patients whose health has been damaged by previously undiagnosed hypercortisolism will be able to receive more effective targeted care. Better treatments are greatly needed. The approval of Lifyorli was enormously gratifying. It is wonderful to be able to offer patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, one of the most challenging forms of cancer, a safe and effective treatment option. We presented complete results from Lifyorli's pivotal trial, ROSELLA, in April at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology's annual meeting with their simultaneous publication in The Lancet. In ROSELLA, Lifyorli met both primary endpoints, significantly delaying disease progression and, even more important, significantly extending overall survival. Patients treated with Lifyorli and nab-paclitaxel chemotherapy experienced a 35 percent reduction in their risk of death, a hazard ratio of 0.65, compared to patients treated with nab-paclitaxel alone. The p-value was 0.04. Notably, these survival benefits were achieved in all patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, not just those selected based on a specific biomarker. Lifyorli's approval is just the first step toward advancing GR antagonism's full potential to treat solid tumors. Many tumors exploit GR signaling to drive treatment resistance. Beyond platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, GR antagonism has the potential to treat any solid tumor expressing the GR, in combination with any anticancer agent. Our oncology development program aims to provide the evidence needed to realize the potential. We are evaluating relacorilant combined with chemotherapy in a variety of solid tumors. One of the arms of our BELLA trial is studying the effect of relacorilant plus nab-paclitaxel and bevacizumab in women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. This arm will produce results this year. Our BELLA trial has two other arms: one which is studying the treatment of patients with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer at an earlier stage of the disease, and one which is studying endometrial cancer. Our STELLA trial in cervical cancer and our TRIDENT trial as a first-line treatment for pancreatic cancer are also underway. These trials will all produce results by the end of next year. We expect data from these studies to influence NCCN guidelines and to inform our future development decisions. Successful results would immediately increase the number of patients that relacorilant may help by fivefold. Also, very important, GR antagonism may augment the effects of immunotherapy. Cortisol suppresses the immune system, blunting the effectiveness of therapies that stimulate an immune response. A treatment regimen combining an immunotherapy agent with a GR antagonist may stimulate a stronger, more effective immune response. We have initiated SYNERGY, a Phase 1b study of our proprietary selective GR antagonist, miricorilant, in combination with nivolumab, a PD-1-directed immunotherapy, across a broad range of solid tumors. We expect results from SYNERGY by the end of next year. Finally, cortisol activity at the GR stimulates the growth of prostate cancer tumors, helping them escape the effects of androgen deprivation therapy. Our collaborators at the University of Chicago are enrolling a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial of relacorilant plus the androgen receptor blocker enzalutamide in patients with early-stage prostate cancer to see if adding a GR antagonist can block cortisol-mediated tumor escape routes. Cortisol activity is involved in the development and progression of metabolic dysfunction associated with steatohepatitis, or MASH. This serious liver disorder afflicts millions of patients worldwide and is a significant and rapidly growing cause of liver and cardiometabolic morbidity and mortality. Our proprietary selective cortisol modulator, miricorilant, is very potent in the liver. In our Phase 1b study, it rapidly reduced liver fat and improved other important markers of liver health, including fibrosis. Miricorilant was well tolerated without the gastrointestinal side effects commonly seen in patients being treated for MASH. Our 175-patient, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b MONARCH study has completed enrollment and will produce data later this year. Positive results would support advancement to Phase 3. Patients with ALS frequently have elevated levels of cortisol, which is why we believe cortisol modulation may help them. Results from DAZZLE, the Phase 2 trial of our proprietary selective cortisol modulator, dazicorilant, have been very encouraging. Patients who received 300 mg of dazicorilant exhibited an 84 percent reduction in risk of death at the one-year mark compared to patients who received placebo; the p-value for this finding was 0.09. This survival benefit persisted into the study's second year with an 87 percent reduction in risk of death and a p-value of less than 0.01. There is a common misperception that death from ALS is always coterminous with severe functional decline. It is not. Many patients die from complications such as pneumonia or cardiovascular events arising well before they have lost significant function and quality of life. Cortisol modulation could prevent such complications or help patients to survive them, which would provide a significant benefit. We are currently conducting a study to see if dose titration can improve dazicorilant's gastrointestinal tolerability. Non-serious GI distress caused most of the discontinuations in DAZZLE. The findings from the study will inform the design of the pivotal trial that we plan to start early next year. To sum up, our Cushing's syndrome business is growing and is poised for accelerated growth driven by increasing awareness of hypercortisolism's true prevalence and the increasing evidence of the importance of treating it. Our landmark CATALYST and MOMENTUM studies are leading to much wider screening for and treatment of Cushing's syndrome. Approval of relacorilant would lead to even faster growth. The launch of Lifyorli in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer is off to a very strong start. We believe the GR antagonism has broad utility in oncology. We look forward to helping many more patients with cancer in the near future. Our BELLA, STELLA, and TRIDENT studies will produce results by the end of next year and have the potential to increase the number of patients Lifyorli could benefit by a factor of five. We are also evaluating the treatment of other solid tumors and other treatment combinations to fully realize our potential in oncology. Following up on our positive Phase 2 DAZZLE findings, we are conducting a dose titration study to inform the design of our planned Phase 3 trial in patients with ALS. By year end, we will have results from our Phase 2b MONARCH trial in patients with MASH. If those results are sufficiently positive, we will proceed to Phase 3. The potential of cortisol modulation is immense. Developing that potential into safe and effective medications is important work. We thank the patients who participated in our trials, our employees, our clinical investigators, and our academic collaborators who make it possible. Operator, let's proceed to questions.
Questions and answers
Certainly. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press *1 on your telephone. Our first question comes from the line of David Amsellem from Piper Sandler. Your question, please.
Thanks. So just a few for me. First, on the patient-level metrics on Lifyorli, can you talk to the number of patients on treatment currently or at the end of Q2? And when you talk about accelerating demand, I just want to get a sense of what exactly that means. Does that mean you are adding the pace of patient adds? It continued to increase through June and into July? That kind of color would be helpful. And then secondly, on the revision to the guidance, is it fair to say that most of that is related to the launch of Lifyorli? And if so, can you talk to the dynamics you are seeing surrounding Korlym? Are there any additional bottlenecks, or lingering bottlenecks, I should say, regarding the pharmacy? What kind of assumptions are now embedded in Korlym with this updated revision to your guide? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, David. Several questions; I will try to sort them out. First question, I think, will go to Roberto, our President of Oncology.
Thank you, Joe. Thank you, David. We talked about the 1,300 patients that we have initiated on therapy since we launched. As you can see from what we discussed in the previous quarter as well, we have really accelerated the adoption of patients. We are very happy. We see a very broad range of patients. We see patients in very early lines of therapy but also patients across the entire spectrum, including late lines as well. And we have maintained a very steady pace of adding patients every week. We are on our way to become market leaders as well as to realize the potential of $1 billion just for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer itself. So, you can derive from there where we are headed. We are very happy with market access as we discussed. So overall, the story holds together as significant growth is ahead of us. Now, talking about this rate of acceleration of demand, we have, of course, as I said, very strong uptake so far, and we are actually working very hard to educate a much broader group of physicians that expands across new clinics. We think we have meaningful opportunity ahead. Our goal is to really go early and go broad. When I say go early, we think that Lifyorli is a drug that belongs early in the intervention. We think that the overall survival benefit, especially the fact that the drug has the opportunity to impact the disease as a disease-modifying effect—if you look at the overall survival curve, you see that those curves separate over time—so it does show an increasingly positive benefit to patients. All those things together point to this drug really belonging into early lines of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. When you put all this together—the profile of the drug, the outcome opportunity—you should be looking to continuous growth for the brand for the quarters to come.
Very good. Thank you, Roberto. And, Sean, why don't you take the next question about the pharmacy?
Happy to take that. So in terms of just how the quarter ended up, I want to set the stage. We had record enrollments, a record number of new prescribers, and a record number of patients on medicine, which, of course, led to the highest tablets we have seen. The market is growing, and that was evidenced in our business in the second quarter, and we expect that to continue to grow and to continue to benefit our business. Now, in terms of the pharmacy specifically, we saw continual improvement every single day, and we expect that continual improvement to move forward. I just mentioned: the market is growing, our business is growing, and we expect them to continue to improve and to continue to keep up.
Our new guidance range reflects strength across both of our businesses, endocrinology and oncology. Both of those are reflected in the update.
Okay. Thank you, David. And next question?
Certainly. And our next question comes from the line of Swayampakula Ramakanth from H.C. Wainwright. Your question, please.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I have just a couple of questions: one on Lifyorli and one on Korlym. On Lifyorli, you did about $48 million in the first quarter with more than 1,300 patients started, as you stated. How much of that reflects pent-up demand versus initial channel build? How many unique prescribers do you have at this point beyond the 200 that you cited in April? Any commentary on duration of therapy would be helpful as well. And then on Korlym, we are back to seeing 27 percent sequential growth. How much of this is clearing up of the backlog from the pharmacy transition versus capacity growth that you currently have gained with the new pharmacy onboard?
Okay. Thank you, RK. I think we got both of those questions. Roberto, would you like to answer the first question on oncology growth?
Yes. As I said, 1,300 patients have initiated therapy and 1,000 unique prescribers since we launched. That answers your question on prescribers. You asked about the duration of therapy: it is a little early for us to assess duration of therapy. Most of our patients we have followed for a couple of months or weeks, and we think that the ROSELLA data is a very good benchmark. So, think about our PFS data—that is what we think will be reflected in the patient population.
And, Sean, I had a question on inventory. Oh, yes. I am sorry. The question was related to inventory; that is for you, Atabak.
I will take that one. On the question about inventory, the simple answer is no: there is not much inventory contribution in the quarter results. By background, we sell through both specialty pharmacies and specialty distributors. Revenue through the specialty pharmacy is direct to patient, so there is no inventory at the channel level; it is all direct to patient and recognized when the patient receives the medicine. In our Cushing's syndrome business, almost 100 percent of our business goes through the specialty pharmacy, and on the oncology side, about 30 percent goes through the specialty pharmacy. The rest goes through specialty distributors, which do hold inventory to then ultimately provide to hospital pharmacies and so forth. Given the cost of the medication, the distributors want to hold minimal inventory—roughly about a week of demand that they keep on hand. So, very little inventory dynamics in the quarter results.
Thank you. Okay. And, Sean, you have a couple questions here.
Thanks, RK. Your question was whether the $44 million growth we saw from Q1 to Q2 was driven by catch-up associated with the pharmacy transition. The answer is no: the transition is behind us. The number was driven by continued servicing of our existing patient base and, as I shared earlier, a record number of new enrollments coming in. We have had a record number of patients every single month, and we expect that to continue to grow.
Thank you, Sean. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. It was a very exciting quarter for us. It is really wonderful to be able to help this new group of patients. We really hope to enlarge that as we go forward and have great expectations that we will. Talk to you next quarter. Thank you very much, and enjoy the rest of your summer. Goodbye.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.