Verastem, Inc.

Verastem, Inc.

VSTM·NASDAQ

$3.62

-5.0%
HealthcareBiotechnology

Verastem, Inc., a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, focusing on developing and commercializing drugs for the treatment of cancer. Its product in development includes VS-6766, a dual rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma (RAF)/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK) clamp that blocks MEK kinase activity and the ability of RAF to phosphorylate MEK. The company also engages in developing RAMP 201, an adaptive two-part multicenter, parallel cohort, randomized open label trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of VS-6766 and in combination with defactinib, an oral small molecule inhibitor of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) in patients with recurrent low grade serous ovarian cancer; and RAMP 202, which is in Phase 2 trial to evaluate the safety of VS-6766 in combination with defactinib in patients with KRAS and BRAF mutant non-small cell lung cancer following treatment with a platinum-based regimen and immune checkpoint inhibitor. Verastem, Inc. has license agreements with Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. for the development, commercialization, and manufacture of products containing VS-6766; and Pfizer Inc. to research, develop, manufacture, and commercialize products containing Pfizer's inhibitors of FAK for therapeutic, diagnostic and prophylactic uses in humans. In addition, it has clinical collaboration agreement with Amgen, Inc. to evaluate the combination of VS-6766 with Amgen's KRAS-G12C inhibitor LUMAKRASTM which in Phase 1/2 trial entitled RAMP 203. The company was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts.

At a Glance

Live Snapshot
Market Cap$250.92M
EPS-3.0200
P/E Ratio-1.20
Earnings Date08/06/2026

Earnings Call Transcript

VSTM • 2025 • Q3

Operator
Good morning, and welcome to Verastem Oncology's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Liz, and I'll be your call operator for today. Please note, this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Julissa Viana, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Patient Advocacy at Verastem Oncology. Please go ahead.
Julissa Viana
Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Verastem's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and recent business updates. This morning, we issued a press release detailing our financial results for the quarter and year-to-date. This release, along with the slide presentation that we will reference during our call today, are available on our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that any statements made during this call are not historical and are considered to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 20, 2025, and the current report on Form 10-Q that will be filed later today as well as other reports filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements we make represent Verastem's views as of today, and we disclaim any obligations or responsibility to update. Joining me on today's call are Dan Paterson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Verastem, who will provide opening remarks and recap key highlights from the quarter. Matt Ros, Chief Operating Officer; and Mike Crowther, Chief Commercial Officer, who will walk through the continued progress of the AVMAPKI FAK
Daniel Paterson
Thank you, Julissa. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter financial results and business update. In Q2, we shared our excitement about achieving FDA approval for AVMAPKI FAK
Matthew Ros
Thank you, Dan. The strong AVMAPKI FAK
Michael Crowther
Thanks, Matt. Let's get right into the specifics of our AVMAPKI FAK
Daniel Calkins
Thank you, Mike. We issued a press release before the call today with the full financial results so I'll focus on the highlights for the third quarter. In our first full quarter of launch, I'm also pleased to report $11.2 million of net product revenue for the third quarter. Cost of sales were $1.7 million for the third quarter of 2025 and did not include a significant amount of product costs as inventory produced prior to FDA approval was fully expensed at the time of production. Currently, we're not providing guidance on gross to net other than to say that expectations should be consistent with other oncology small molecule therapeutics. Turning to research and development expenses. They were $29.0 million for the third quarter of 2025. R&D expenses were driven by both the ongoing global confirmatory Phase III RAMP-301 clinical trial and the ongoing BS-7375 Phase I/IIa clinical trial as well as higher costs associated with drug substance production activities related to BS-7375. SG&A expenses were $21.0 million for the third quarter. The expenses were driven by commercial activities and operations, which included personnel-related costs to support the ongoing CO-PACK launch. We continue to be prudent in our expense management, making the right investments at the right time to support the ongoing commercial launch efforts while simultaneously advancing our pipeline. For the third quarter of 2025, non-GAAP adjusted net loss was $39.4 million or $0.54 per share diluted compared to non-GAAP adjusted net loss of $35.3 million or $0.88 per share diluted for the 2024 quarter. Please refer to our press release for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures. Moving to the balance sheet. We ended the third quarter of 2025 with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $137.7 million. We believe our current cash, combined with future revenues from AVMAPKI FAK
Daniel Paterson
Thanks, Dan. Before we open the call to Q&A, I'll share a few final remarks to close out today's presentation. We've seen another strong quarter of execution at Verastem as we continue to deliver on all our strategic priorities, meeting our key milestones and delivering a strong commercial launch. As we're in the final quarter of 2025 and look to 2026, I want to reaffirm our strong confidence in our growth trajectory and the significant value creation opportunities ahead for our company and shareholders. Commercial execution remains a top priority. The fundamentals are driving AVMAPKI FAK
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Michael Schmidt with Guggenheim Securities.
Michael Schmidt
On the LGSOC launch, yes, just wondering if you could provide a few more comments on how the product is being used in the market in terms of patients having had prior lines of therapy. I'm just thinking about some of the market dynamics around incidence of new patients that relapse versus that sort of existing prevalence pool. How is the product being utilized in that context? And what are you seeing in terms of KRAS mutant versus wild-type use?
Daniel Paterson
Yes. I mean we're early in the launch. So you do end up seeing some patients with later lines of therapy, but we're also seeing patients that are first recurrence, and it is a mix of wild-type and mutant as well as some just off-label totally. We don't have exact numbers on that. Again, we don't see total visibility of that through the distribution channel that goes through the distributors as opposed to specialty pharmacy. And we don't always have a good view in the total number of lines of therapy. I don't know, Mike, if you wanted to give a little more color.
Michael Crowther
Sure, Dan. I mean, consistent with what you've said, we've seen a variety of patients across a range of lines of therapy. We're not always giving the information about what prior therapies they've been on, but obviously, they've seen most of the classical mix of chemotherapy, AI, bevacizumab plus or minus a MEK inhibitor. Since we're promoting just on label, the vast majority of our patients that we've seen so far are KRAS mutant LGSOC.
Michael Schmidt
Great. And then a question on the RAMP-301 study update. Just curious if you could comment on what type of analysis the IDMC did? Was this just looking at event rates and adjusting for event rates? Or did they perhaps look at additional information in terms of effect size? Any comments there would be helpful.
Daniel Paterson
Yes, great question. I mean, to be clear, we're blinded by what the IDMC did. And we had put this interim analysis in place because -- and we've mentioned this before, there wasn't perfect information on the comparators. There weren't prior studies with prospectively broken out KRAS mutant and wild-type. And we tried to keep the sample size as low as possible, but also have the ability to be able to upsize that if needed. I'm optimistic because the number of recommended additional patients was relatively small, about 30. It was across both wild-type and mutant, which, again, I think speaks to them being within the range. And what I was told is because the study accrued faster than we had projected, there were less events than one normally would have had. And I think part of the reason for adding a couple more patients is there just aren't enough events yet really to draw any definitive conclusion, and we want to make sure we're -- we have enough patients to be in the range.
Michael Schmidt
And congrats again on a great quarter.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Justin
Justin Zelin
Congrats on the strong quarter. I wanted to ask about the NCCN committee review in October, if you had heard back on a recommendation for the labels to be expanded to include KRAS wild-type patients? And I have some follow-ups.
Daniel Paterson
Yes, that's a great question. And to be clear, had we heard, we would have told people, we don't know. We know the committee met. We don't know the outcome of that yet.
Justin Zelin
Got it. Do you have an expectation on any time lines on when you might expect to hear back?
Daniel Paterson
We actually don't. We've heard it can be as long as early next year, could be earlier. I think different committees operate differently. We've not been given a lot of guidance. It's a relatively opaque and what I would say, secret process, and they've all signed NDAs and things. And so as much as I would love to know the outcome of the meeting, we just don't know yet.
Justin Zelin
Understood. And maybe just one additional question just on the commercial launch. Do you have any color on new patient starts versus patients who are refilling prescriptions as far as contribution to your strong quarter?
Daniel Paterson
Matt, do you want to take that one?
Matthew Ros
Yes, sure. Great question. We aren't providing that level of detail or specificity on new to Rx refills. However, we are continuing to see significant new prescriptions come in for patients and patients that have started on therapy, particularly in the beginning of the third quarter have continued to receive refills. So we are seeing the dynamic in the marketplace, but providing that level of granularity at this point is a bit too premature for us. We wanted to see another full quarter or 2 underneath our belts before we provide that level of detail.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] your next question comes from the line of Sean Lee with H.C. Wainwright.
Xun Lee
Congrats on a good quarter. I just have 2 quick ones. First, on the LGSOC market. I was wondering whether you could provide some details on what are you seeing in terms of patient retention. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think on the clinical study, the average treatment duration was about 10 months. So it's still a little bit early for that. Maybe if you can provide some color on the patient dropout rates, has that been in line with what you expect?
Daniel Paterson
Yes. I would say it's really early to tell. And actually, average duration was about 18 months in the clinical trial. I don't know, Matt or Mike, if you want to provide any more color. It is really too early to tell.
Matthew Ros
Yes. I mean it's a great question. Dan is right. The performance of the CO-PACK in the clinical program, the DOR was around 18 months. We're seeing patients that are coming in at first recurrence. And so we would expect if they're coming in, in an earlier line of treatment that the benefit would be prolonged, but it is still fairly early to provide specific commentary.
Xun Lee
I see. My second question is on the VS-7375 study. I was wondering whether there are any significant differences between how you're treating the patients compared to the study that your partners running in China? Because I think I recall that you were discussing some prophylactic antiemetics and such. Are there any notable differences?
Daniel Paterson
Yes. Thanks, Sean. That was a great question. Yes, one of the things that we've said we were doing differently is -- and this was based on experience with the G12C inhibitors being developed and a number of our investigators participated in those studies is really the differences where the patients in China were fasted. This first couple of cohorts we treated in the U.S. were fed. They were also mandated to have prophylactic antiemetics, which is not a part of the protocol in China. And part of the reason we released the information on the first 2 cohorts is, a, we thought it was important that we cleared those first 2 cohorts, which included the recommended Phase II dose in China without any DLTs. But also the early data that we're seeing is that those interventions are making a difference. And as we said earlier, we didn't see any GI toxicities, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea that were greater than grade 1, which we were very happy to see, and we hope that carries forward.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Yuan
Yuan Zhi
Congratulations on the commercial launch. And maybe my first question is for your confirmatory trial, can you remind us what was the enrollment plan for the KRAS mutant patient population and the KRAS wild-type patient population separately?
Daniel Paterson
So the total enrollment was planned for 270, and there were guardrails to set up to keep the amount somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 KRAS mutant to mirror the population. And so this accrual has come out that way. And as I mentioned, the data monitoring committee recommended that we put a couple more patients on both of those groups. And so we were glad to see, a, that it was a small number of patients that actually could have gone up quite a bit and that it was both arms, which tells us that we're in play with both of them.
Yuan Zhi
Got it. My second question is, what is your next step or priority in the commercial launch? Do you plan to target more prescribers or just make sure a higher number of prescription per doctor?
Daniel Paterson
I would say both. We're not going to change what we're doing. We feel that between our direct calling on individual doctors, the programmatic work we're doing with the organizations and our digital work as well as reaching out to patients that we're covering the waterfront. So we're not planning on changing what we're doing, but it's really a matter of making sure existing prescribers continue to prescribe. New prescribers come on because in any launch, you've got early adopters, mid-adopters, late adopters, and we're working through that chain. And then importantly, that when patients go on, they stay on.
Yuan Zhi
Got it. Maybe before I jump back to the queue, my last question is on the patient's journey. So let's say a patient got their prescription, how long do they have to refill? And how often do they have to visit the doctors to check either symptoms or any side effects? Additional color will be very helpful.
Daniel Paterson
Yes, Mike, do you want to take that one?
Michael Crowther
Sure. So prescription is for a month supply, 3 weeks out of 4. And in terms of doctors' visits, there is a small amount of visits to begin with just to make sure they're being monitored closely for early toxicities, but that rapidly goes down to every 3 to 6 months.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Schmidt with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Eric Schmidt
Apologies, I hopped on a little bit late. But with regard to the RAMP-301 IDMC recommendation to moderately upsize the study, can you talk about what the potential outcomes could have been through that look and what data the committee had access to in order to make the decision?
Daniel Paterson
Yes. So the committee had the full data set and the outcomes could have ranged from everything from futility adding, I believe, up to 100 patients to they could have added none. Again, we're blinded to the actual results, but our understanding was there were less events than one would have anticipated given the rapid accrual and that may have led to the small number of patients being added on, but they are being added on to both KRAS wild-type and mutant and it's about 30 across the 2 groups.
Eric Schmidt
So that's helpful. There wasn't any prespecified criteria for adding the 30-ish, 27 patients -- sorry, 29 patients. It was just what the IDMC chose to do, that number?
Daniel Paterson
My understanding is it was within their purview and they made a recommendation to us and we followed it. And again, we don't have full transparency into exactly what they were doing.
Eric Schmidt
And then maybe switching to the 7675, the G12D in your ongoing study. We're very clear that GI tolerability was good in the first dose with no more than grade 1 cases of GI issues. Were there any other side effects to report in that initial cohort? Anything at all of grade 2 or 3?
Daniel Paterson
Well, I believe there were some grade 2 or 3 in very, very small numbers, but nothing -- no signal that we had not expected based on the Chinese data. I think the only thing that was really different was the level of GI tox. And we'll give a more full release of the full efficacy once we've got a few more patients on. I think we've guided early next year, we'll give an update on both efficacy and safety.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of James Molloy with Alliance Global Partners.
James Molloy
I was wondering, could you share any sort of anecdotal updates from the launch, talking to the usage and potential off-label usage on the wild-type versus mutant and sort of any feedback you're getting early stages of the launch? And then I have a couple of other questions as well.
Daniel Paterson
Sure. Mike, Matt, you guys want to give a little more color?
Michael Crowther
Sure. I mean I think as we shared in our scripted remarks and an earlier question, we're promoting obviously, our labeled indication. So the vast majority of use we've seen thus far has been within the KRAS mutant LGSOC population. That doesn't mean there haven't been wild-type patients because they have, and those have also been seeing coverage through the payers as well thus far.
James Molloy
Okay. Great. Then maybe a follow-up, looks like there's been some M&A in the oncology space recently. You guys are obviously off to an excellent launch here. Any thoughts -- care to discuss any inbound interest you may or may not have from other partners?
Daniel Paterson
I mean obviously, we wouldn't talk about any specifics. But given the launch trajectory to date, and I'd say even more so the excitement around G12D and how the molecules perform both preclinically and clinically. We do get a fair amount of inbound interest and entertain those discussions all the time. We've got some very exciting plans to take these forward, but we're always evaluating could we do more with more resources.
Transcript from November 4, 2025

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