Bullish indicating open at $55-$60, IPO prices at $37
Absci Corp (ABSI) reported its second-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a significant revenue shortfall against forecasts. The company’s earnings per share (EPS) came in at -$0.24, slightly below the expected -$0.21, marking a 14.29% negative surprise. Revenue was notably lower at $600,000 compared to the anticipated $1.39 million, a 56.83% miss. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s revenue has declined nearly 10% over the last twelve months, with particularly weak gross profit margins. Despite these results, Absci’s stock showed resilience, rising 4.39% to $2.92 in after-hours trading.
Key Takeaways
- Absci’s Q2 revenue fell significantly short of expectations, missing by 56.83%.
- EPS also missed forecasts, with a negative surprise of 14.29%.
- Despite disappointing earnings, Absci’s stock increased by 4.39% in after-hours trading.
- The company extended its cash runway into 2028 with recent capital raises.
- Absci remains focused on innovative drug development, with several programs in the pipeline.
Company Performance
Absci’s performance in Q2 2025 was marked by a substantial revenue miss, which contrasts with its previous quarters where revenue generally met or exceeded projections. The company’s focus on research and development (R&D) reflects its commitment to innovation, but this has come at a high cost, with R&D expenses rising to $20.5 million from $15.3 million the previous year. Despite these challenges, Absci remains optimistic about its strategic direction, bolstered by a strengthened AI-integrated drug creation platform and new partnerships.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $600,000, down significantly from expectations.
- Earnings per share: -$0.24, missing the forecast of -$0.21.
- R&D Expenses: $20.5 million, up from $15.3 million YoY.
- SG&A Expenses: $8.5 million, down from $9.3 million YoY.
- Cash and equivalents: $117.5 million as of June 30, 2025.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Absci’s Q2 2025 earnings fell short of analyst forecasts, with EPS at -$0.24 compared to the expected -$0.21. The revenue miss was more pronounced, with actual earnings of $600,000 against a forecast of $1.39 million, resulting in a 56.83% shortfall. This performance marks a significant deviation from previous quarters, where earnings surprises were less severe.
Market Reaction
Despite the disappointing earnings report, Absci’s stock rose by 4.39% to $2.92 in after-hours trading. This increase may reflect investor optimism about the company’s long-term prospects, buoyed by strategic investments and a robust pipeline of drug development programs. The stock’s performance is notable given its current price is near the lower end of its 52-week range, which spans from $2.01 to $6.33.
Outlook & Guidance
Looking ahead, Absci anticipates signing at least one major pharma partnership in 2025. The company is progressing with its AVS-101 and ABS-201 programs, with interim results expected later in the year and into 2026. Absci’s guidance for future quarters suggests continued focus on innovation, particularly in challenging therapeutic areas such as androgenetic alopecia and immuno-oncology.
Executive Commentary
CEO Sean McLean expressed optimism, stating, "For Abzai, the future has never been brighter." This sentiment was echoed by CFO Zach Jonasen, who highlighted the company’s potential for new partnerships, saying, "We continue to anticipate signing one or more drug creation partnerships, including with a large pharma company."
Risks and Challenges
- High R&D costs: Continued investment in R&D could pressure margins if revenue growth does not materialize.
- Revenue volatility: The company’s reliance on partnerships may lead to unpredictable revenue streams.
- Market competition: Absci faces significant competition in the biotech sector, challenging its market position.
- Regulatory hurdles: Clinical trials and drug approvals are subject to stringent regulatory scrutiny, posing potential delays.
- Economic conditions: Broader economic factors could impact funding and investment in biotech innovation.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential for quarterly dosing of AVS-101 and the exploration of endometriosis as an additional indication for ABS-201. Absci’s management confirmed these possibilities, emphasizing their confidence in the company’s capacity for developing additional programs and partnerships.
Full transcript - Absci Corp (ABSI) Q2 2025:
Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Abseye’s Second Quarter twenty twenty five Business Update Call. At this time, all 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, will need to press 11 on your telephone.
You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye: Thank you. Earlier today, Abci released financial and operating results for the quarter ended 06/30/2025. If you haven’t received this news release or if you would like to be added to the company’s distribution list, please send an email to investors@absci.com. An archived webcast of this call will be available for replay on Absci’s Investor Relations website at investors.absci.com for at least ninety days after this call. Joining me today are Sean McLean, Appsci’s Founder and CEO and Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer.
Christian Stegman, Appsci’s SVP of Drug Creation will also be joined for Q and A following prepared remarks. Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated, and you should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements. Additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause results to differ appears in the section titled Forward Looking Statements in the press release that Absa issued today and the documents and reports filed by Absa Life from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Abzai disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward looking statements either because of new information, future events, or otherwise.
This conference call contains time sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast 08/12/2025. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Sean.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Thanks Alex. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining our Q2 twenty twenty five business update call. The last few months have been very productive for Abzai as we continue to execute across all aspects of our business. In May, we initiated phase one clinical trials for AVS-one hundred one, a potential best in class anti T1A antibody.
This ongoing study is designed to evaluate safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of this program. We continue to see tremendous value in the potentially differentiated profile of this molecule and expect to report interim results later this year from this ongoing study in Australia. We also continue to make progress in potentially first in class bispecific antibody that leverages ABS 101 in conjunction with a novel arm. We are pleased to share that interest from potential partners regarding our TL1A antibody, as well as our potential bispecific program remain very strong. While ABS 101 advances through the clinic, we are excited to have our second program, ABS two zero one accelerating towards the clinic too.
As a reminder, ABS two zero one is our innovative anti prolactin receptor antibody for androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as male and female pattern hair loss. This condition affects approximately eighty million adults in The US alone. And there has not been significant therapeutic innovation in this area for nearly thirty years. But our program, ABS201 represents a potential new category of therapy for androgenetic alopecia, which we believe could offer durable, effective hair regrowth. In preclinical studies, ABS two zero one demonstrates evidence of high potency, favorable safety, low immunogenicity, extended half life, and great manufacturability.
ABS201 is designed to offer significant improvements as compared to current treatments such as minoxidil and finasteride. Those treatments are well known variable or limited efficacy, and in some cases, serious side effects. We continue to rapidly advance this program towards the clinic, guided by a network of distinguished hair and dermatology experts across the globe. We anticipate initiation of a phase one 2A trial in early twenty six with potential interim efficacy and proof of concept data anticipated later that year. We plan to develop ABS201 internally through later stage clinical development and proof of concept to realize maximum value, given its potentially promising profile, defined development path and large market.
As a reminder, we also continue to progress on several additional programs. ABS301, this is a potential first in class antibody targeting an undisclosed immuno oncology target identified through a reverse immunology platform. Early data indicate potential broad applicability, squamous cell carcinoma and other indications. AVS-five zero one. This is a potential best in class anti HER2 antibody identified using our zero shot de novo AI models.
These AI design leads displayed novel epitope interactions, increase or equivalent potency to trastuzumab in preclinical settings, efficacy against a trastuzumab resistant xenograft tumor, and good developability. Beyond all these programs, we have a number of exciting early stage programs in our pipeline we have not yet revealed. As a demonstration of the power of our platforms differentiate capabilities, many of these programs are designed to go after traditionally difficult to drug targets such as GPCRs and ion channels. We look forward to sharing additional information on these at a later date. While we make progress across our portfolio, we continue to advance our AI integrated drug creation platform, which enables our pipeline of assets and programs and offers differentiated value proposition for potential drug creation partners.
Our integrated wet lab and AI approach allows us to generate scalable high quality data to train our models. We have built a team of world class AI researchers who harness this data along with industry leading compute to rapidly validate, iterate on, and optimize our models. As a reminder, earlier this year, AMD made a $20,000,000 strategic investment in Abside, reflecting their conviction and the potential of our AI driven drug creation platform. Our collaboration continues to advance and AMD compute solutions supporting key workloads across our antibody design platform. We will continue to share key updates to this strategic collaboration in the future as they occur.
As Zach will discuss further in detail, last month, we took action to further strengthen our balance sheet. In July, we raised approximately 64,000,000 in gross proceeds through a $50,000,000 underwritten public offering and 14,000,000 from one premier investment firm utilizing our at the market facility. We’re grateful for all of the investors, new and existing, that have continued to support our mission. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Zach to walk through our partnerships, our outlook, and provide an update on our financials. Zach?
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: Thanks, Sean. As Sean mentioned, we continue to execute across all aspects of our business. Our portfolio of internal and partnered programs continues to progress, and we continue to advance discussions with multiple prospective high quality new partners interested in our platform and or specific internal programs. This year, we continue to anticipate signing one or more drug creation partnerships, including with a large pharma company. As we have said previously, we plan to provide material updates when possible about ongoing internal and partnered programs as they advance through development.
Case in point, we are pleased to have recently shared an exciting update from our ongoing collaboration with Almirall. Based on our successful AI de novo design of functional antibodies against the collaboration’s first target, a difficult to drug ion channel, Almirall has elected a second pair of targets for a bispecific antibody. The first program having achieved a key technical milestone will continue to advance in parallel with the new bispecific program. Under the terms of the two program collaboration, in addition to royalties on future product sales, Abseil is eligible to receive up to approximately $650,000,000 in upfront R and D and post approval milestone payments across both programs. As a reminder, our business strategy is focused on out licensing or selling our internal programs and co developed programs, following value inflection proof points.
We make decisions about transacting individual programs based on multiple factors with the aim of maximizing overall shareholder value. Accordingly potential transactions may occur as early as preclinical proof of concept or at much later stages of development. With respect to ABS 101, we continue to be engaged with multiple interested parties regarding a potential transaction following positive clinical data readouts. We have also identified interest in our TL1A bispecific program, which is currently in early preclinical development. Based on these discussions, we believe there are multiple parties who have strategic interest in acquiring a TL1A asset and also remain confident in our ability to execute a value accretive ABS 101 transaction.
With respect to ABS three zero one and ABS five zero one, our immuno oncology and oncology program respectively, We continue to believe that these programs are better suited for development with a large pharma or biotech company. Accordingly, we intend to seek partners for these programs at earlier stages of development, including potentially a preclinical validation. Conversely, we see strong rationale for developing our ABS201 androgenetic alopecia program through much later stages of development and potentially through commercialization. This program offers a straightforward clinical development pathway, which includes objective endpoints and the potential for rapid clinical trial recruitment. Moreover, based on
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: our
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: Phase one2a clinical trial design, we expect to generate a potential interim proof of concept readout for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia in the 2026. We believe we are well positioned to execute on this clinical development plan, which offers the potential for substantial near term value creation. As Sean mentioned earlier, beyond these four programs and our partnered programs, we have a number of exciting earlier stage programs in our R and D pipeline, which we plan to discuss at a later date. Turning now to our financials. Revenue in the second quarter was $600,000 as we continue to progress our partner programs.
Research and development expenses were $20,500,000 for the three months ended 06/30/2025, as compared to $15,300,000 for the prior year period. This increase was primarily driven by advancement of our internal programs, including direct costs associated with external preclinical and clinical development, and an increase in personnel costs and stock compensation expense. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $8,500,000 for the three months ended 06/30/2025, as compared to $9,300,000 for the prior year period. This decrease was primarily due to a decrease in stock compensation expense. As an organization, we have continued to identify and realize operational efficiencies in R and D and SG and A, which will in part offset elevated spending in other areas of R and D such as clinical trial expenses.
Cash, cash equivalents and short term investments as of 06/30/2025 were $117,500,000 as compared to $134,000,000 as of 03/31/2025. After the quarter close, we raised an additional approximately $64,000,000 in gross proceeds, dollars 50,000,000 of which was raised through an underwritten public offering and $14,000,000 of which was raised through our ATM facility. The utilization of the ATM facility was entirely related to a single large inbound order placed by a premier long only mutual fund investor. Our decision to execute these capital raises was strategic, targeted, and sized to proactively improve our balance sheet, supporting the achievement of key clinical readouts and other potential catalysts. With this additional capital, we believe our existing cash, cash equivalents and short term investments will now be sufficient to fund our operations into the 2028.
We see additional upside to this forecast based on potential non dilutive cash inflows that could come from new platform collaborations with large pharma and or an asset transaction associated with our wholly owned programs such as AVS-one 101. With this strengthened balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to advance our internal programs, including accelerating the development of ABS two zero one toward a potential proof of concept readout in the second half of next year and to advance ongoing and new partnership discussions associated with our internal programs and platform. In sum, we are encouraged by our recent progress and excited to execute on the next phases of our strategy. With that, I’ll turn it back to Sean.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Thanks, Zach. I’d like to close by thanking our team at Abzai for their dedication and drive as we seek to achieve the impossible. And to all of our shareholders, new and existing, we thank you for your continued support. We see a number of potential major catalysts for our company over the next eighteen months and beyond, and we’re excited to share these updates with you all along the way. Looking ahead, we have strengthened our financial position and now have cash runway into the 2028.
We anticipate interim phase one readout for ABS one hundred one later this year. We expect to close at least one new large pharma deal this year. And our ABS two zero one program for androgenetic alopecia is on track to potentially see an interim efficacy readout next year. To reflect last year, we had a fully preclinical pipeline. This year, we’ve become a clinical stage biotech company with ABS one hundred one entering the clinic.
And next year, we anticipate another milestone and potentially major value inflection point for ABS two zero one with an interim efficacy and proof of concept readout. For Abzai, the future has never been brighter. With that, I’ll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q and A. Operator?
Conference Operator: Thank you. The first question comes from Brendan Smith with TD Co. And your line is open.
Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Co.: Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Congrats on all the progress. Great to see. First quickly, can you just remind us what kind of data, maybe how many patients and length of follow-up we can expect from this first TL1A data readout later this year?
And then I’ll have a follow-up.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Brandon. I’ll pass that over to Christian to answer that.
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: Thanks, John. This is Christian Stegman. Yes, we have planned to dose approximately 40 healthy volunteers for the ABRS-one 101 Phase I study, and we expect to see pharmacokinetic and pharmacokinetic data at the interim readout, plus we expect to have a first read on immunogenicity. Does that answer your question?
Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Co.: Yes, yep, that’s great. And then just quickly on two zero one, can you just remind us what the current plan is, kind of from a formulation and dosing perspective? I understand it’s not going be in the clinic until early next year, but do you have a sense of maybe how often you think you’d need to dose and whether you’ll do IV or subcu and just any important potential pivot points in development path ahead of driving some of those decisions.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. Go
Arsene Shabashbili, Analyst, Guggenheim: ahead, John.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Go for it, Christian.
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: Alright. Thanks, John. We absolutely intend to deliver a subcutaneous formulation for this product as well. We expect to see a six month treatment cycle for this product, and assuming that we reach the expected TPP, that will be two or three doses over a period of six months delivered subcutaneously. Now, depending on the progress in developing the subcutaneous formulation, we will see the usage of this formulation during the Phase I study.
It may not be ready for the single ascending dose, but we assume it to be ready for the multiple ascending dose.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: To double click on that, we are planning to have IV for the SAD and then the subcu for the MAD portion for the efficacy readout in the second half of next year.
Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Co.: Okay, got it. And that subcu is being developed internally?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: That is correct, in partnership with our CDMO provider. We do believe that we will ultimately get between one hundred and eighty to two hundred mgs per mL. So we see this being able to formulate for subcu.
Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Co.: Awesome. Great.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Thanks, guys.
Conference Operator: And the next question will come from Kripal Devakonda with Truist. Your line is open. Your line is now open. Check your mute button.
Kripal Devakonda, Analyst, Truist: Hello? Can you hear me now?
Conference Operator: Yes.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yep.
Kripal Devakonda, Analyst, Truist: All right. This is Alex on for Crippa. Maybe a big picture question from us. We’ve heard through investor discussion that many big pharma players have advanced AI based systems that they might not talk about with regularity, but are still there and that includes drug discovery. What is your longer term vision or your longer term value proposition to remain competitive given the parallel developments at other companies?
Thanks.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think really where we’re wanting to focus in our AI is on the de novo side, so creating these antibodies from scratch. But not only just creating them from scratch, being able to go after hard to drug targets like ion channels and GPCRs. And the recent partnership with Omral, we were working on an ion channel, a very difficult to drug target. And we were successful in being able to drug that target.
And that’s actually led to the second election for that Olmirall partnership, another difficult to drug target. It’s gonna be a bispecific. But in all of our partnership discussions and the partnership discussions we have for a large pharma partnership, we’re looking to announce this year. That all tracks on those hard to drug targets. And so we really see that being a fundamental value prop for us, both for our partnered programs, but also for our own internal development.
Kripal Devakonda, Analyst, Truist: That’s great. Thanks. And looking forward to
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: the interim results later this year. Thank you.
Conference Operator: And the next question is going to come from Sean Laumann with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Sean Laumann, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hi everyone. This is Morgan on for Sean. On the phase one NTM readout for ABS 101, I just wanted to double check one of the primary goals would be seeing the potential for quarterly dosing. Also wanted to get your view on the ESPIRE data that was recently released and how the half life data showed the potential for quarterly to potentially semi annually dosing and what your response would be to that data. Thank you.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. The data readout will be able to confirm the half life, which we are anticipating to be once quarterly. So that will be an important readout at the end of this year for AVS-one hundred one. And I’ll hand it over to Christian to respond to the SPIRE data and what we’re hearing from KOLs in terms of quarterly versus semi annually.
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: Yeah, thanks, John. Absolutely. So yes, we think SPIRE definitely has shown very solid data. We cannot comment on specific properties of their molecule. We will note though that their CMC package does potentially have a few open questions, in particular when it comes to the likelihood of success for combination formulations at the needed doses that they intend to deliver.
In principle, we think that just like their molecule, our molecule will have an extended half life, and whether we talk about once quarterly or every six months is ultimately going to be driven by the chosen dose and by the overall observed terminal half life of the molecules, plus commercial considerations. So we will expect to be in a similar range here. But at this point, given the stage of our program, it would not be prudent to make such claims.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, and additionally, I’ll just mention that we, at least talking with KOLs, we actually think once quarterly lines up really nicely with in doctor visits for patients, and that convenience is important and we don’t really see a major difference between once quarterly and twice a year. We do continue to believe that differentiation with different bispecific approaches is gonna be important to show potential better efficacy. And that’s where I think we’re getting a lot of interest on this bispecific that we’re developing that does have a novel arm. And we’re excited to see what that efficacy looks like compared to other combo based approaches as well as head to head to TL1A as the mono based therapy.
Sean Laumann, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay, thank you.
Conference Operator: And the next question will come from Arsene Shabashbili with Guggenheim. Your line is open.
Arsene Shabashbili, Analyst, Guggenheim: Hi, it’s Arsene on for Vamil. Thank you for taking our questions. On your early oncology programs, ADS three zero one and five zero one, what are the next preclinical milestones, and what would trigger advancements into IND enabling studies? And can you also provide more detail on the competitive landscape and commercial rationale for these programs?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. And maybe I’ll hand this over to Zach, and I think he can answer it in the context of what some of our potential partners are looking for for these assets and kind of our strategic thought on how to best pursue these assets. So Zach, I’ll hand it over to you.
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: Thanks, Sean, and thanks for the question, Arseny. The major thrust there right now for both of those programs is doing additional in vivo work. And I think when we complete that work, we would have a DC package. And from a business standpoint, as Sean mentioned, we would look to partner those programs early. We believe those are both better suited to a large pharma and we’ve certainly had quite a lot of engagement from large pharma and interest around the three zero one program.
So we would expect to transition those programs into a partnering Strategy once we complete the drug, the DC package either later this year or early next year.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, and in terms of where we’re headed as a company, a lot of earlier stage pipeline continues to be in I and I and we really wanna stay focused on that. And at our upcoming R and D day, we will be talking about another DC that is within INI. And this is where we want to continue to kind of build out our own internal portfolio and in oncology on those two particular assets, as Zach mentioned, being able to out license those once we have that DC package and that in vivo validation. I think those discussions that we’ve had with large pharma around those assets, I think have been going really well.
Arsene Shabashbili, Analyst, Guggenheim: Understood. And maybe one more related question on two zero one. You previously talked about the potential development of ABS two zero one for endometriosis. Could you talk about your latest thinking on prioritizing endometriosis indication versus alopecia?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. We think endometriosis is a really exciting indication to go after, And we are going to be positioning the Phase onetwo A trial for two zero one to include female patients to be able to, if we so choose to, in parallel to a phase twothree in androgenic alopecia, we could also run a phase two efficacy in endometriosis. And we will, at a later point in time, be talking more about this particular indication. And that’s currently all upside and kind of optionality, but we are making sure that we have that optionality if the capital is there to prosecute on that phase two. But we are excited about that indication and we’ll be providing more information here at a later date.
Arsene Shabashbili, Analyst, Guggenheim: Thank you.
Conference Operator: And our next question will come from Gil Blum with Needham and Company. Your line is open.
Gil Blum, Analyst, Needham and Company: Good afternoon everyone and thanks for taking our question. So maybe a general one here. Should we expect to start seeing revenue recognition from partners? I’m assuming there’s some transfer of money from partners considering all the work that you’re currently doing. And as a follow on, is ongoing debate with additional pharma, is that predicated on any specific data you’re going to put out or is this, you know, these discussions are going parallel?
Thank you.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: I’ll let you take that.
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: Sure, Gil, and the revenue recognition question, the answer is yes. But as you know, these partnership agreements, particularly around the platform are milestone oriented. So the revenue is going to be relatively lumpy. And the same would would apply to an asset based transaction. We would expect a large upfront and then milestone payments.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: It would be lumpy better after.
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: So, yeah, so the answer is the short answer is yes, but the more detailed answers is you would see that kind of lumpy over the course of the development of those programs. And then with respect to our ongoing discussions with pharma, I think what Sean alluded to earlier is there’s been a lot of interest in how we’ve expanded our capabilities to address these difficult drug targets. This would include the channel that we’ve worked on with Elmeral, but also what we’ve done with Caltech against HIV epitope. And some other work we’ve done with some partners. Those are really catalyzing those discussions.
Pharma moves at its own pace, but I can tell you, we’ve had very substantive discussions, a lot of diligence work, and we feel confident that we’re going to meet our guidance of signing at least one large pharma partnership around the platform this year. And I think we’re well positioned to do more of those partnerships as we move into ’twenty six.
Conference Operator: And the next question will come from Devadonna Chatterjee with Jones. Your line is open. Devanjana, your line is open. Please check your mute button.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye0: Hi. Sorry, was on mute. Thanks for taking my question. So in terms of the ABS-two zero one data expected in the 2026, could you tell us what is the bar for good data in terms of hair density and terminal hair count improvement? How we should benchmark the data set?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, absolutely. Christian, do you want to take that?
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: Yeah, a great question. We have not yet disclosed our clinical development and targeted product profile plan in detail. But you’re totally correct, the target area headcount is obviously the number one efficacy endpoint to look for in an androgenic alopecia trial, and we are actively designing our study to deliver efficacy readout against this endpoint, and we’ll share more details in terms of the exact bar at R and D Day later this year.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye0: Sure, and maybe a quick follow-up. Are you able to share if this will be an open label trial, or this will be like a controlled one?
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: It will definitely be a controlled study.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye0: Okay, thank you so much.
Conference Operator: And the next question will come from Steven Deckardt with KeyBanc. Your line is open.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye1: Hey guys, just given the expanded partnership with Almirall, we’re wondering how much capacity do you feel like you have for additional programs and partnerships? Thanks.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Zach, you want to take that?
Zach Jonasen, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, Abseye: Sure. It’s a great question. We look at our capacity on a quarterly basis. And I think we’re in good shape for what we want to accomplish with existing partners as well as what we’re projecting for a new large pharma partnership later this year. And that’s also in conjunction with what we’re doing to build our own internal portfolio.
One of the really exciting things about the AI platform we’re building is It not only is increasing its capabilities to address these difficult to target drugs, but it also creates a number of efficiencies. Which allows us to leverage our manpower better and essentially take on more programs per unit cost. So just to put a finer point in it, we make that evaluation on a quarterly basis and make sure that we have sufficient capacity to do everything we need to do with partners as well as what we’re working on for our internal portfolio.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye1: Great, thanks. And you kind of mentioned in a previous question, just hoping to get an update on the call there region of HIV. Just anything new with that program you can talk about. Thanks.
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, we have nothing new to update on with that particular program. It is currently in the hands of Caltech for their portion of the collaboration, but it is progressing well. And we plan to update everyone once we have more information to share on that program. But it is progressing, and we’re very excited about the dependent control of that program. All right, thank you.
Conference Operator: The next question will come from Swayampakula Ramakanth with HCW. Your line is open.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye2: Thank you. This is RK from HCW. Good afternoon, Sean and Zach. So it’s quite clear that you want to take the two zero one program all the way to commercialization. In general, what’s the development plan for this?
So beyond the study that you’re planning to do, does it require just one phase three study and what sort of timeline are we talking about for this drug to get to commercialization?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, that’s a great question, RK. And the way we’re looking at this is after the phase one, 2a trial, we would then plan to do a worldwide phase two, phase three trial and would anticipate potential approval in 02/1930, 02/1931, if all goes to plan. Obviously, all of this is still very early and in the works. That’s kind of our initial plan at the moment. But as we progress in this initial trial, we’ll plan to provide more updates on that.
And I don’t know, Christian, if you have anything else to add on that.
Christian Stegman, SVP of Drug Creation, Abseye: No, absolutely, Sean. We will set up this clinical development program in a very time sensitive manner. As Sean mentioned, our study would be a Phase I, Phase IIa study that will allow us to go directly into a combined phase two, phase three study. And obviously, this indication requires a very benign safety profile for this indication. Hence, we pay a lot of attention to design our study in a prudent manner.
At the same time, we are confident that we can execute this program in a way that allows us to get to a BLA submission, as Sean mentioned, in the 02/1930, 2031 timeframe.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye2: Thanks, and the second question from me is, Sean, during the prepared remarks you were saying something about unveiling additional programs during an R and D day this year. So the four programs that we are talking of today, obviously they’re in different therapeutic categories. So as you go forward, is there a plan to be focusing more under a specific therapeutic category or is it all dependent what comes down your way?
Sean McLean, Founder and CEO, Abseye: Yeah, so we’re gonna continue to work with partners and a lot of different indications. But as we look to build out our own internal pipeline, I think we do have more of a focus on I and I as well as metabolism and cardiometabolic diseases. And we’ll be sharing more at R and D Day. I don’t think we’ve sent out an exact time on when that R and D Day is going to be at the current moment, but we will have further updates on our internal pipeline at that point in time.
Alex Kahn, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Abseye2: Thank you. Thanks for taking my question.
Conference Operator: This will end today’s question and answer session and concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.
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