On Tuesday, Curis (NASDAQ:CRIS) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

Curis Inc reported a net loss of $24.2 million for Q1 2026, up from $10.6 million in Q1 2025, due to changes in warrant liabilities.

The company is progressing with its Take Aim Lymphoma Study and anticipates accelerated submissions in the US and Europe.

A proof of concept study for CLL is underway, with initial data expected in December 2026.

Research and development expenses decreased to $6.4 million, while general and administrative expenses increased to $5.1 million due to financing activities.

Curis Inc holds $15 million in cash and expects additional proceeds from warrant exercises to fund operations into the second half of 2027.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Curis Inc. first quarter 2026 business update conference Call. At this time all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press 0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Diane Feduval, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you and welcome to the Curis first quarter 2026 business update call. Before we begin, I'd like to encourage everyone to go to the Investor section of our website at www.curis.com to find our first quarter 2026 business update press release and related financial tables. I would also like to remind everyone that during the call we will be making forward looking statements which are based on our current expectations and beliefs. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially. For additional details, please see our SEC filings. Joining me today on today's call are Jim Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Jonathan Zung, Chief Development Officer, and Dr. Ahmed Hamdi, Chief Medical Officer. We will also be available for a question and answer period at the end of the call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Jim.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you Diane Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our First Quarter Business Update call. We continue to make steady progress in our Take Aim Lymphoma Study in primary CNS lymphoma, one of the most rare and most difficult to treat of the NHL subtypes. As a reminder, the Take Aim Lymphoma Study is a single arm registrational study with an ORR endpoint that is evaluating EMAvucertib in combination with ibrutinib after a patient has progressed on BTK inhibitor therapy and after collaborative discussions with both FDA and EMA. We expect the study to support accelerated submissions in both the US And Europe. We anticipate providing updated EMAvucertib clinical data from the Take Aim Lymphoma Combination Study with Ibrutinib and in patients with relapsed refractory PCNSL in the first half of 2027. We continue to make good progress on enrollment on this registrational study and appreciate the ongoing support of our clinical investigators, key opinion leaders, and regulatory authorities. As you recall, last year we engaged with a number of key opinion leaders who were excited and highly supportive about expanding our emavucertib studies into additional NHL subtypes. They were especially interested in exploring emivacertib's potential to fundamentally change the treatment paradigm for CLL patients where the current standard of care is BTK inhibitors. Over the last decade, BTK inhibitors have become standard of care in CLL and NHL because of their ability to help patients achieve objective responses. However, these responses are typically partial responses not complete remission. The result is that patients treated with a BTK inhibitor end up having to stay on it in chronic treatment for the rest of their lives. Additionally, because they never achieve complete remission, many of these patients develop BTK inhibitor resistant mutations and ultimately their disease progresses. We're looking to improve upon the current standard of care by adding emavucertib to a patient's BTK inhibitor regimen, applying a dual blockade to the two biologic pathways driving cll. This dual blockade can enable patients whose NHL subtype partially responds to a BTK inhibitor to achieve deeper responses with the combination, including the ability to achieve complete remission or undetectable disease and the potential for time limited treatment. If we are successful, adding emovacertib to BTK inhibitor could change the treatment paradigm in cll, reducing the risk of developing a treatment resisting mutation and improving a patient's overall quality of life.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

The first step in testing this hypothesis in CLL is our proof of concept study in patients currently on BTK inhibitor monotherapy who have achieved partial remission but have been unable to achieve complete remission or undetectable mrd. We anticipate the dosing of the initial five patients in the Take Aim CLL combination study with zanabrutinib by mid-2026 and we expect to have initial data in December. In January we one of our collaborators, Dr.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Patrick Grierson of the Seitman Cancer center at Washington University in St. Louis presented a poster with initial clinical data in gastric and esophageal cancer at the ASCOGI Cancers Symposium. In this study, patients are treated with emivacertib in combination with FOLFOX and anti PD1 plus or minus Herceptin as first line therapy for metastatic or unresectable gastroesophageal cancers. The initial data showed results for 16 valuable patients demonstrating both a manageable toxicity profile and encouraging preliminary results.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

As you can see, we had a very productive quarter and look forward to an exciting 2026 as we advance our registrational study in PC and SL and our proof of concept study in cll. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Diane for the financial update. Diane, thank you.

Diane Feduval (Chief Financial Officer)

Curis reported a net loss of 24.2 million or $1.25 per share for the first quarter of 2026 as compared to a net loss of $10.6 million or $1.25 per share for the same period in 2025. The increase in net loss was primarily due to a change in fair value of warrant liabilities associated with the January 2026 pipe financing. Research and development expenses were $6.4 million for the first quarter of 2026 as compared to $8.5 million for the same period in 2025. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower employee related and manufacturing costs. General and Administrative expenses were $5.1 million for the first quarter of 2026 as compared to $4.0 million for the same period in 2025. The increase was primarily attributable to expenses associated with the January 2026 pipe financing, partially offset by lower employee related costs. Here's cash and cash equivalents as of March 31, 2026 of 15 million, together with anticipated gross proceeds of up to an additional 20.2 million from the exercise of the January 2026 pipe financing series B warrants.

Diane Feduval (Chief Financial Officer)

Upon the public announcement of dosing up the fifth CLL patient in our Take Aim CLL study expected later this year, should enable the company's planned operations into 2H27. With that, I'd like to open the call for questions. Operator thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. On your touchtone phone you will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised.

Diane Feduval (Chief Financial Officer)

Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any key. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Sarah Nick with HC Wainwright. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon and thanks for taking the question regarding the CLL study you guided to announcing dosing of the first five patients by mid year. I was wondering if you could provide as of today how many patients have been dosed so far and maybe any color on the current pace of site activation and enrollment. Thank you.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you Sarah. Appreciate the question and thanks for calling in. So yeah, we're trying to move away from patient-by-patient updates, five is already a pretty small number. We're going to try and get out of the patient by patient update, but as I would say we're obviously very confident that we are hitting our target on track and the process of Both getting our sites up and running and our patients consented into the study is on track and we look forward to providing an update mid summer.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Okay, thank you. Sure. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from Yale. Jen with Laidlaw and co. Please go ahead.

Yale Jen

Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions in terms of PCNSL. You mentioned you're going to have an Update in 1H27. I wonder that will related to the data or simply just the enrollment status or any other details and thanks.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Sure. Hi Yale again, thanks for calling in and appreciate the question. So on PCNSL. Yeah, I mean you're exactly right. What we have said is we expect that we're going to be in a position or at least we're hoping to be in a position where we hope to be fully enrolled in that study in 2027. So our expectation would be we could have a substantial update on enrollment in the first half of 2027. Right now, of course we're a long way from that. We'll continue to provide updates as we know more going through the year. But right now I'd say we're cautiously optimistic. We are on track and we look forward to having that discussion at that time.

Yale Jen

Maybe just follow up on that. In terms of the current sort of enrollment situations, I know it's very lumpy,. But overall are they within your expectation for either better or worse at least at this moment. And thanks.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

No, thank you. No, it's on track. Yes, you're exactly right. This is one of the issues, of course when you're developing a drug in an ultra orphan space, there are just frankly not a lot of those patients around. So we will go as we have in the past some months where we don't have any patients, then some months where we get two or three on any given month. Your description of 'lumpy' is spot on. But as we take a step back and we say not on any given month, but are we on track to hit our enrollment targets in time for a disclosure first half of 2027? And I'd say yes, we continue to see the same kind of performance over time that we have been. Excitement continues to be very strong and as I say we look forward to providing that update with the full Data set in 2027. But stay tuned. We'll provide updated guidance as we go along through the year. Great question.

Yale Jen

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. And again congrats on the progress.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from Kripa Devarakonda with Truist. Please go Ahead. Hi, this is Anna on for Kripa. Thanks so much for taking our question. Just two questions on. I think you mentioned you're evaluating two doses kind of to satisfy the project optimist. And I know it's a small sample size, but are there any expectations for any meaningful differences in the safety profile when you're kind of adding emoviserative to these combinations? And in terms of the CLL standard of care, I was just wondering how, if you could remind us kind of how you're differentiating there. Thanks.

Anna

Yeah, so let me talk to the first part and then I'll ask Ahmed to chime in on cll. So. So the first question is. Yes, as part of the discussions that we had with FDA and ema, they were very clear that we need to make sure to include data on 100 and 200 in our submissions, which of course we will do. I don't anticipate that there is a whole lot of. There's a whole lot of question about safety between 100 and 200. I think, as you may remember, we have dosed emovacertib as high as 500 milligrams, so I think the safety profile should be manageable at both. It's really a question of we know that the dose is active at both 100 and 200 and we just need to satisfy ourselves that 200 is the best dose as a starting dose for patients and that they have the ability to dose up or down from a safety perspective as needed, maybe diving into CLL in particular. I'll ask Dr. Hamdi to comment, Ahmed.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Sure. Thanks for the question. I think you know, CLL, although BTKs and BCL2s have done quite a bit of difference for patients yet, the problem is patients have to continue dosing chronically for extended periods of time, leading to potential resistance and mutations, along with toxicities like cardiovascular and bleeding and bone marrow suppression, which is really one of the hardest things for CLL patients. The treatment goal or the unmet medical need currently in CLL is getting patients to a treatment free remission period. And when we look at the current state of affairs in cll, most patients do not achieve a CR or MRD negative, allowing them to stop treatment in a monotherapy setting. And basically BTKs work by inhibiting the BCR signaling pathway, which would also inhibit the NF Kappa B which is the driver of the disease. But because those patients are not getting to SCR or MRD negative, there's quite a bit of preclinical work that has been done by renowned key opinion leaders stating that there is a constituent activation of the NF kappa B through the TLR pathway which EMAvucertab inhibits. The concept of combining EMAvucertab with a BTK inhibitor can potentially lead to more profound inhibition of the NF Kappa B and therefore, hopefully we can see more CRs than the monotherapy or with BTK alone. So we think that the combo can really make a difference for those patients. On the other hand, as you know, the space has also been trying to combine BTKs with BCL2s and anti CD20s. Although some of these combinations have a higher CR rate and MRD rate, yet it comes with a high toxicity profile, specifically on the bone marrow with infections and so forth. So I hope we are quite differentiated from what we see right now. And as you've seen with our programs, we've combined with ibrutinib in a lot of patients and we have not seen any additive toxicities or bone marrow suppression. So we feel that this can really be a paradigm shift in the treatment of CLL in a combination setting when we inhibit two nodes in the main pathway that is activating the disease. Hope that helps.

Ahmed Hamdi

Thanks so much.

Anna

Thank you, Anna. Appreciate you calling in.

OPERATOR

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. We have a question from Board Teaker with Jones. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking all the questions. This is Dania for Boris. My first question is about the follow up for the CLL trial. What specific signs of activity are you looking for in the initial patient to validate this dual blockade we've been discussing?

Dania

Yeah, again I think that's probably a best question for Dr. Hamdi Ahmed if you want to.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

I'm sorry, I didn't hear clearly the last part of the question. If you mind repeating it.

Dania

Sure. Just what initial or specific signs of activity are you looking in the initial patients that you'll be enrolling?

Ahmed Hamdi

Well, currently we're combining with xenobrutinib in patients who are currently in a PR or a partial response, which is basically all zanubrutinib patients. And the idea is to see deepening of responses where we can see patients inching towards a CR and getting to an undetectable MRD status where we can get patients to a treatment free remission by stopping both drugs.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Let me add to that as well. So in these early days, so I'll differentiate a little bit, the goal where Ahmed was headed from the early days. So just as a reminder, a patient coming into the study as Dr. Hamdi said is currently on zanubrutinib and they're in partial remission, meaning their CLL counts. Right. They've dropped 50% or more, and then they've plateaued. So they can get their cancer level down by 50%, but no lower than that or wherever they plateaued. At that point, we enroll them in the study and add a second pill. We add Emma. So what we really want to see, frankly, is that we can take them from plateauing to decreasing their disease burden. And at that point, from a patient's perspective, of course, any decrease is good, but we want to see the disease trending down. Now, from a regulatory perspective, our goal, of course, we expect to see patients with significant reductions, and we're hoping to see patients that are able to do what they can't do on monotherapy, meaning get all the way down to complete remission or MRD and maybe even time, limited treatment. But in these early days, what we're really hoping to see is a patient comes in having plateaued on Xanu, and if they add a second pill, if they add emavucertib, we can see them reduce their cancer burden. That's what we're hoping. Does that make sense?

Dania

Yes. Thank you very much. And just the last question. Are you seeking a commercial partnership for the AML program?

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

No, not yet. I would say at this point in time, we have addressed the financing of the company with the January financing, and we appreciate that that gave us the ability to not just continue executing against pcnsl, but add the PCNSL program. And right now we're focused on generating data in those indications. And of course, what we'd love to be able to do with additional resources is add AML into that same mix and take the next step. Because the next step in AML would be a registrational study at some point in time. Could a partnership make sense? Absolutely. We have discussions, just as every biotech company does. But right now our goal is to use the resources from the financing that we've gained to continue to push forward both on the registrational study and on the new study in cll, and hopefully be able to continue this success with data that we've seen so far.

Dania

Thank you very much.

Jim Dentzer (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you very much. Appreciate the call.

OPERATOR

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Jim Gensler for closing remarks. Please continue.

Jim Gensler

Thank you, operator. And thank you everyone for joining today's call. And as always, thank you to the patients and families participating in our clinical trials, to our team at CURIS for their hard work and commitment to our partners at Origin, the NCI, and the academic community for their ongoing collaboration and support. We look forward to updating you again soon.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.