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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-11Autolus Therapeutics Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Autolus Therapeutics Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR? Here are five stocks we like better. AUCATZYL sales accelerated: Second-quarter net product revenue rose to $45.7 million, up from $26.2 million in Q1 and $20.9 million a year earlier. Autolus raised its 2026 revenue guidance to $140 million–$150 million as U.S. and U.K. treatment-center access expanded. Profitability and liquidity improved: Gross margin increased to 55% from 6% in the prior quarter, while the net loss narrowed to $39.1 million. A $75 million draw from a new credit facility, along with existing cash and expected revenue, is expected to fund operations into Q2 2028. Pipeline catalysts are ahead: Autolus expects additional FELIX data and initial results from its ALARIC lupus and BOBCAT multiple-sclerosis studies by year-end 2026 or early 2027, while the CATULUS pediatric ALL trial is expected to complete enrollment by year-end. Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported second-quarter 2026 net product revenue of $45.7 million from sales of AUCATZYL, up from $26.2 million in the first quarter and $20.9 million a year earlier, as the company expanded treatment-center access and continued its commercial launch in the United States and United Kingdom. Chief Executive Officer Christian Itin said first-half AUCATZYL revenue reached $71.9 million, approaching the company’s full-year revenue in its first year of launch. Based on recent performance, Autolus raised its full-year 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue guidance to $140 million to $150 million, from a prior range of $120 million to $135 million. → SoundHound AI Sends a Loud Signal After Its Q2 Earnings Beat Autolus said it had activated more than 80 treatment centers in the U.S. by midyear, surpassing its prior goal of reaching about 80 centers by the end of 2026. Itin said the company expects to have more than 90 centers activated by year-end and is focusing on areas where patient access remains limited by distance to treatment sites. The company also began its U.K. launch at the start of the year. Chief Financial Officer Rob Dolski said the U.K. market has shown strong adoption, though its revenue contribution remained relatively minor compared with the U.S. business during the quarter. Itin said the company expects to approach 20 authorized treatment centers in the U.K. by year-end, initially focused predominantly on England while it pur…Read full documentShow less
Interested in Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR? Here are five stocks we like better. AUCATZYL sales accelerated: Second-quarter net product revenue rose to $45.7 million, up from $26.2 million in Q1 and $20.9 million a year earlier. Autolus raised its 2026 revenue guidance to $140 million–$150 million as U.S. and U.K. treatment-center access expanded. Profitability and liquidity improved: Gross margin increased to 55% from 6% in the prior quarter, while the net loss narrowed to $39.1 million. A $75 million draw from a new credit facility, along with existing cash and expected revenue, is expected to fund operations into Q2 2028. Pipeline catalysts are ahead: Autolus expects additional FELIX data and initial results from its ALARIC lupus and BOBCAT multiple-sclerosis studies by year-end 2026 or early 2027, while the CATULUS pediatric ALL trial is expected to complete enrollment by year-end. Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported second-quarter 2026 net product revenue of $45.7 million from sales of AUCATZYL, up from $26.2 million in the first quarter and $20.9 million a year earlier, as the company expanded treatment-center access and continued its commercial launch in the United States and United Kingdom. Chief Executive Officer Christian Itin said first-half AUCATZYL revenue reached $71.9 million, approaching the company’s full-year revenue in its first year of launch. Based on recent performance, Autolus raised its full-year 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue guidance to $140 million to $150 million, from a prior range of $120 million to $135 million. → SoundHound AI Sends a Loud Signal After Its Q2 Earnings Beat Autolus said it had activated more than 80 treatment centers in the U.S. by midyear, surpassing its prior goal of reaching about 80 centers by the end of 2026. Itin said the company expects to have more than 90 centers activated by year-end and is focusing on areas where patient access remains limited by distance to treatment sites. The company also began its U.K. launch at the start of the year. Chief Financial Officer Rob Dolski said the U.K. market has shown strong adoption, though its revenue contribution remained relatively minor compared with the U.S. business during the quarter. Itin said the company expects to approach 20 authorized treatment centers in the U.K. by year-end, initially focused predominantly on England while it pursues market access in Scotland. → 3 Dividend Champion Utilities for a Market That Can't Sit Still Management attributed commercial momentum in part to physician experience with the therapy and real-world data presented by the ROCCA Consortium at the Tandem Meetings. In response to analyst questions, Itin said the company is principally focused on expanding the overall CAR T market in the indication, including patients who may previously have been considered less suitable for CAR T treatment. While the company expressed confidence in its full-year outlook, Itin said quarterly revenue may fluctuate due to seasonality. He noted that registrations increased significantly following the real-world data presentation, contributing to second-quarter results. → Take-Two’s Q1 Results Leave GTA 6 Bulls Stuck in the Fog of War Autolus reported a 55% gross margin in the second quarter, compared with 6% in the first quarter and negative gross margins in each quarter of 2025. Dolski said the improvement reflected higher commercial production volume, operating-model efficiencies and cost-reduction initiatives implemented earlier this year. The company also began clinical production at its Nucleus manufacturing facility during the second quarter, which management said improved cost-per-batch economics by increasing production volume through the facility. Cost of sales declined to $20.5 million from $24.4 million in the second quarter of 2025, driven by operational improvements as well as lower inventory reserves and write-offs. Autolus is targeting a mature gross margin of 65% to 70% for its adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, business. Itin said management expects to reach that range in roughly 12 to 18 months, supported by further manufacturing and product-release efficiencies. The company said its current manufacturing configuration can serve the adult and pediatric ALL markets in the territories where it operates. Additional clean rooms can be brought online for larger future opportunities, though management said it does not intend to add capacity prematurely because underutilized capacity would raise operating costs. Research and development expense was $27.9 million in the second quarter, compared with $27.4 million a year earlier. Selling, general and administrative expense rose to $41.2 million from $30.3 million, primarily reflecting employment costs and professional fees associated with U.S. and U.K. commercialization efforts. The quarter also included certain termination-related expenses tied to an operational efficiency and cost-reduction initiative announced in April. Loss from operations narrowed to $43.8 million from $61.2 million in the prior-year period. Net loss narrowed to $39.1 million, compared with $47.9 million in the second quarter of 2025. In July, Autolus entered a five-year, interest-only senior credit facility with Perceptive Advisors providing for up to $250 million in aggregate principal amount. The company drew $75 million at closing and may access another $25 million at its option for up to six months after closing. A further $150 million could become available in separate tranches if specified revenue milestones are achieved. Autolus had $201.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of June 30, excluding the initial credit-facility draw in July. Dolski said the June balance, anticipated revenue and the first two potential facility tranches totaling $100 million provide cash runway into the second quarter of 2028. Beyond adult ALL, Autolus outlined several expected clinical updates. The company expects a longer-term update from the CARLYSLE study in systemic lupus patients at the American College of Rheumatology meeting by year-end. Itin said a substantial portion of patients is expected to have at least 12 months of follow-up, providing additional information on durability and clinical outcomes. Additional analyses from the FELIX study are expected by the end of 2026. Initial data from the ALARIC Phase I study of AUTO8 in light-chain amyloidosis are expected by year-end. Initial data from the BOBCAT study in progressive multiple sclerosis are expected in the first quarter of 2027, with a further dataset expected in the second half of 2027. The CATULUS pivotal study in pediatric ALL is expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2026, with initial data anticipated by the end of 2027. Data from the LUMINA pivotal study in lupus nephritis are expected in 2028. For BOBCAT, management expects the first 2027 update to include data from 12 patients, including safety, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic measures, biomarkers and early clinical experience. A later update involving an expected 18 patients could include longer-term clinical response and imaging data. Autolus Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of next-generation, programmed T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company leverages proprietary technologies to engineer autologous T cells that target and eradicate tumor cells, with the aim of improving safety, efficacy and durability over existing cell therapies. Its R&D platform integrates antigen receptor design, gene editing and manufacturing optimization to generate candidates tailored for specific hematologic malignancies and solid tumor indications. The company's leading pipeline candidates include AUTO1, an optimized CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and AUTO3, a dual-targeted CD19/22 CAR-T program in development for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Autolus Therapeutics Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-11Autolus Therapeutics Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Updates
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Autolus Therapeutics Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Updates
Company reports AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) net product revenue of $45.7 million in Q2 2026, an increase of 119% year-over-year FY 2026 net product revenue guidance increased to $140 - $150 million Gross margin increased in Q2 2026 , driven by growing volumes and cost reduction initiatives Capital base strengthened through five-year, interest-only credit facility of up to $250 Million with Perceptive Advisors with $75 million funded at close Obe-cel clinical development programs on track with trial enrollment ongoing in lupus nephritis, pediatric ALL and progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) Conference call to be held today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announces its operational and financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. “In the second quarter we achieved substantial sales growth in the ongoing AUCATZYL launch, driven by physician enthusiasm and expanding product use within existing authorized treatment centers, as well as the addition of new centers coming online. We believe this adoption is testament to the product’s efficacy and differentiated safety profile, which was underscored by the ROCCA consortium real world data reported earlier in the year,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. “The increased product volumes, combined with the ongoing operational efficiency initiatives announced in April, together drove a significant step up in gross margin. We expect improvement over time towards our peak estimate for adult ALL margins of 65-70%.” Dr. Itin added, “We see adoption of AUCATZYL in adult r/r B-ALL as a key near-term value driver. Longer-term, we believe there are meaningful opportunities to expand into new indications to continue driving scalable growth by leveraging obe-cel’s favorable profile and Autolus’ proven manufacturing and commercial capabilities.” Product and Pipeline Updates: AUCATZYL® Launch Obe-cel in pediatric r/r B-ALL Obe-cel in lupus Obe-cel in progressive multiple sclerosis AUTO8 in Light-Chain Amyloidosis Q2 2026 Operationa…Read full documentShow less
Company reports AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) net product revenue of $45.7 million in Q2 2026, an increase of 119% year-over-year FY 2026 net product revenue guidance increased to $140 - $150 million Gross margin increased in Q2 2026 , driven by growing volumes and cost reduction initiatives Capital base strengthened through five-year, interest-only credit facility of up to $250 Million with Perceptive Advisors with $75 million funded at close Obe-cel clinical development programs on track with trial enrollment ongoing in lupus nephritis, pediatric ALL and progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) Conference call to be held today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announces its operational and financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. “In the second quarter we achieved substantial sales growth in the ongoing AUCATZYL launch, driven by physician enthusiasm and expanding product use within existing authorized treatment centers, as well as the addition of new centers coming online. We believe this adoption is testament to the product’s efficacy and differentiated safety profile, which was underscored by the ROCCA consortium real world data reported earlier in the year,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. “The increased product volumes, combined with the ongoing operational efficiency initiatives announced in April, together drove a significant step up in gross margin. We expect improvement over time towards our peak estimate for adult ALL margins of 65-70%.” Dr. Itin added, “We see adoption of AUCATZYL in adult r/r B-ALL as a key near-term value driver. Longer-term, we believe there are meaningful opportunities to expand into new indications to continue driving scalable growth by leveraging obe-cel’s favorable profile and Autolus’ proven manufacturing and commercial capabilities.” Product and Pipeline Updates: AUCATZYL® Launch Obe-cel in pediatric r/r B-ALL Obe-cel in lupus Obe-cel in progressive multiple sclerosis AUTO8 in Light-Chain Amyloidosis Q2 2026 Operational Updates: On August 3, 2026, Autolus announced that the Company entered into a strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors, a leading global healthcare specialist investor, for the sale of notes of up to $250 million in aggregate principal amount in a five-year, interest-only senior credit facility, subject to certain conditions. An initial $75 million principal amount of notes has been issued by Autolus to Perceptive on July 30, 2026, and an additional $25 million in aggregate principal amount will be available at Autolus’ option for up to six months post-closing. An additional $150 million in aggregate principal amount of subsequent capital may become available in separate tranches upon achievement of certain pre-specified revenue milestones. In June 2026, Autolus was awarded the 2026 Prix Galien UK Award for Best Biotechnology Product. Winners of the prestigious Prix Galien awards are selected by a UK Awards Committee, which comprises 12 experts in the field who are leaders in UK healthcare. In April 2026, Autolus announced a strategic initiative and plan to improve operational efficiency and reduce operating expenses. As part of this initiative, Autolus implemented a reduction in force affecting approximately 13% of its existing overall workforce, impacting all areas of the business. The actions are expected to reduce operating expenses by approximately $15 million on an annualized basis beginning in 2027. The implementation of the workforce reduction plan is now substantially complete. Outlook:Autolus recently increased the full year 2026 guidance for AUCATZYL net product revenue to $140 million to $150 million, from between $120 million to $135 million. Based on current operating plans, including anticipated AUCATZYL net revenues and proceeds of the combined first and second tranches totaling $100 million from the recently-announced credit facility, Autolus expects that its current and projected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund the Company’s operations into Q2 2028.Summary of Anticipated News Flow: Financial Results for the Quarter Ended June 30, 2026Product revenue, net increased to $45.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to $20.9 million the same period in 2025. Cost of sales decreased to $20.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to $24.4 million the same period in 2025. Gross margin1 was 55% in the second quarter of 2026, increasing from 6% in the first quarter of 2026 and negative in all prior quarters in 2025. This improvement in gross margin was primarily driven by a reduction in manufacturing cost per batch, reflecting increased volumes and the ongoing operational efficiency initiatives, and lower inventory reserves and write-offs compared to the same period in the prior year. Research and development expenses increased to $27.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to $27.4 million in the same period in 2025. This change was primarily due to an increase in research and development activities including clinical trial and clinical manufacturing supply costs and is partially offset by a decrease in salaries and other employment-related costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $41.2 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to $30.3 million in the same period in 2025. This increase was primarily due to salaries, other employment-related costs and professional fees supporting commercialization activities in the US and UK. In addition, the quarter also included additional termination-related expenses, relating to the strategic operational efficiency and cost reduction initiative announced in April 2026. Loss from operations for the three months ended June 30, 2026, was $43.8 million, as compared to $61.2 million for the same period in 2025. Net loss was $39.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to $47.9 million for the same period in 2025. Basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share for the three months ended June 30, 2026, was $(0.15), compared to basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share of $(0.18) for the same period in 2025. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at June 30, 2026, totaled $201.6 million, as compared to $229.4 million at March 31, 2026. The decrease was primarily driven by net cash used in operating activities, which includes cash received in relation to a UK R&D tax credit. Conference CallManagement will host a conference call and webcast today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST to discuss the company’s financial results. Conference call participants should pre-register using this link to receive the dial-in numbers and a personal PIN, which are required to access the conference call. A simultaneous audio webcast and replay will be accessible on the events section of Autolus’ website at https://www.autolus.com/investor-relations-media/events/. About Autolus Therapeutics plcAutolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. . For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. About AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel)AUCATZYL is a B-lymphocyte antigen CD19 (CD19) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy designed to overcome the limitations in clinical activity and safety compared to current CD19 CAR T cell therapies. AUCATZYL is designed with a fast target binding off-rate to minimize excessive activation of the programmed T cells. AUCATZYL was approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia on November 8, 2024, and was granted conditional marketing authorization by MHRA in the UK and EMA in the EU in 2025. INDICATION AUCATZYL® is a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days following the first infusion (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). The most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%), and hypoxia (19%). Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). Sixty-eight percent of patients (51/75) experienced CRS after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 10 days). Among patients with CRS, the most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%) and hypoxia (19%). The primary treatment for CRS was tocilizumab (73%; 55/75), with patients also receiving corticosteroids (21%; 16/75). Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage CRS. During and following treatment with AUCATZYL, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of CRS daily for at least 7 days following each infusion. Continue to monitor patients for CRS for at least 2 weeks following each infusion with AUCATZYL. Counsel patients to seek immediate medical attention should signs or symptoms of CRS occur at any time. At the first sign of CRS, immediately evaluate the patient for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Neurologic Toxicities Neurologic toxicities including Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS), which were fatal or life-threatening, occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. Neurologic toxicities were reported in 64% (64/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 12% of patients. The median time to onset of neurologic toxicities was 10 days (range: 1 to 246 days) with a median duration of 13 days (range: 1 to 904 days). Fifty-five percent of patients (35/64) experienced neurologic toxicities after the first infusion but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 11 days). Among patients with neurologic toxicities, the most common symptoms (> 5%) included ICANS (38%), headache (34%), encephalopathy (33%), dizziness (22%), tremor (13%), anxiety (9%), insomnia (9%), and delirium (8%). Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS) ICANS events occurred in 24% (24/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 7% (7/100) of patients. Of the 24 patients who experienced ICANS, 33% (8/24) experienced an onset after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL. The median time to onset for ICANS events after the first infusion was 8 days (range: 1 to 10 days) and 6.5 days (range: 2 to 22 days) after the second infusion, with a median duration of 8.5 days (range: 1 to 53 days). Eighty-eight percent (21/24) of patients received treatment for ICANS. All treated patients received high-dose corticosteroids and 42% (10/24) of patients received anti-epileptics prophylactically. Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage ICANS. During and following AUCATZYL administration, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS. Following treatment with AUCATZYL, monitor patients daily for at least 7 days. Continue to monitor patients for at least 2 weeks following treatment with AUCATZYL. Avoid driving for at least 2 weeks after each infusion. Counsel patients to seek medical attention should signs or symptoms of neurologic toxicity/ ICANS occur. At the first sign of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS, immediately evaluate patients for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Prolonged Cytopenias Patients may exhibit cytopenias including anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia for several weeks after treatment with lymphodepleting chemotherapy and AUCATZYL. In patients who were responders to AUCATZYL, Grade ≥ 3 cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 30 following AUCATZYL infusion were observed in 71% (29/41) of patients and included neutropenia (66%, 27/41) and thrombocytopenia (54%, 22/41). Grade 3 or higher cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 60 following AUCATZYL infusion was observed in 27% (11/41) of patients and included neutropenia (17%, 7/41) and thrombocytopenia (15%, 6/41). Monitor blood counts after AUCATZYL infusion. Infections Severe, including life-threatening and fatal infections occurred in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Non-COVID-19 infections of all grades occurred in 67% (67/100) of patients. Grade 3 or higher non-COVID-19 infections occurred in 41% (41/100) of patients. AUCATZYL should not be administered to patients with clinically significant active systemic infections. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infection before and after AUCATZYL infusion and treat appropriately. Administer prophylactic antimicrobials according to local guidelines. Grade 3 or higher febrile neutropenia was observed in 26% (26/100) of patients after AUCATZYL infusion and may be concurrent with CRS. In the event of febrile neutropenia, evaluate for infection and manage with broad-spectrum antibiotics, fluids, and other supportive care as medically indicated. Viral reactivation, potentially severe or life-threatening, can occur in patients treated with drugs directed against B cells. There is no experience with manufacturing AUCATZYL for patients with a positive test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or with active hepatitis B virus (HBV) or active hepatitis C virus (HCV). Perform screening for HBV, HCV and HIV in accordance with clinical guidelines before collection of cells for manufacturing. Hypogammaglobulinemia Hypogammaglobulinemia and B-cell aplasia can occur in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Hypogammaglobulinemia was reported in 10% (10/100) of patients treated with AUCATZYL including Grade 3 events in 2 patients (2%). Immunoglobulin levels should be monitored after treatment with AUCATZYL and managed per institutional guidelines including infection precautions, antibiotic or antiviral prophylaxis, and immunoglobulin replacement. The safety of immunization with live viral vaccines during or following treatment with AUCATZYL has not been studied. Vaccination with live viral vaccines is not recommended for at least 6 weeks prior to the start of lymphodepleting chemotherapy treatment, during AUCATZYL treatment, and until immune recovery following treatment with AUCATZYL. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis/Macrophage Activation Syndrome (HLH/MAS) HLH/MAS including fatal and life-threatening reactions occurred after treatment with AUCATZYL. HLH/MAS was reported in 2% (2/100) of patients and included Grade 3 and Grade 4 events with a time of onset at Day 22 and Day 41, respectively. One patient experienced a concurrent ICANS events after AUCATZYL infusion and died due to sepsis with ongoing HLH/MAS that had not resolved. Administer treatment for HLH/MAS according to institutional standards. Hypersensitivity Reactions Serious hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, may occur due to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an excipient used in AUCATZYL. Observe patients for hypersensitivity reactions during and after AUCATZYL infusion. Secondary Malignancies Patients treated with AUCATZYL may develop secondary malignancies. T cell malignancies have occurred following treatment of hematologic malignancies with BCMA- and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapies. Mature T cell malignancies, including CAR-positive tumors, may present as soon as weeks following infusion, and may include fatal outcomes. Monitor lifelong for secondary malignancies. In the event that a secondary malignancy occurs, contact Autolus at 1-855-288-5227 for reporting and to obtain instructions on the collection of patient samples for testing. Adverse Reactions The safety of AUCATZYL was evaluated in the FELIX study in which 100 patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) received AUCATZYL at a median dose of 410 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells (range: 10 to 480 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells with 90% of patients receiving the recommended dose of 410 × 106 +/- 25%). The most common serious adverse reactions of any Grade (incidence ≥ 2%) included infections-pathogen unspecified, febrile neutropenia, ICANS, CRS, fever, bacterial infectious disorders, encephalopathy, fungal infections, hemorrhage, respiratory failure, hypotension, ascites, HLH/MAS, thrombosis and hypoxia. Nine patients (9%) experienced fatal adverse reactions which included infections (sepsis, pneumonia, peritonitis), ascites, pulmonary embolism, acute respiratory distress syndrome, HLH/MAS and ICANS. Of the 9 patients, five patients who died from infections had pre-existing and ongoing neutropenia prior to receiving bridging therapy, lymphodepletion chemotherapy treatment and/or AUCATZYL. Please see full Prescribing Information, including BOXED WARNING and Medication Guide. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as "may," "will," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," and "believes." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Autolus’ future expectations, plans and prospects, including guidance on 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue and gross margin, and the impact of recently announced restructuring activities; Autolus’ anticipated cash runway; the therapeutic potential and expected clinical benefits of AUCATZYL for adult patients with r/r B-ALL and obe-cel in additional indications including LN and progressive MS; Autolus’ ability to generate revenues from AUCATZYL; Autolus’ ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for obe-cel for adult r/r B-ALL in additional territories and the timing thereof; expectations regarding the commercialization, marketing and manufacturing of AUCATZYL for adult r/r B-ALL, including expanding into additional territories and the related timing of reaching patients in such territories; the development of obe-cel in autoimmune indications and of additional product candidates, including statements regarding the initiation, timing, progress and the results of clinical studies or trials and related preparatory work; the period during which the results of clinical studies or trials will become available; Autolus’ plans to expand, develop and enhance its manufacturing activities; and Autolus’ pursuit of expanded market access across Europe. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks identified in the section titled "Risk Factors" in Autolus' Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), on March 27, 2026 and any of its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Autolus' subsequent filings with the SEC. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Autolus undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing Autolus’ views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected] 1 Gross margin percentage represents gross margin (net product revenue less cost of sales) divided by net product revenue
TranscriptFY2026 Q22026-08-11FY2026 Q2 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 78 paragraphs
FY2026 Q2 earnings call transcript
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Autolus Therapeutics second quarter 2026 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Executive Director of Investor Relations, Amanda Cray. Please go ahead.
Thank you, DeeDee. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. With me, our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Christian Itin, and Chief Financial Officer, Rob Dolski. I'd like to remind you that during today's call, we will make statements related to our business that are forward-looking under federal securities laws and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the status of ongoing commercial launch of AUCATZYL in the U.S. and U.K., Autolus manufacturing, sales, and marketing plans for AUCATZYL, the market potential for AUCATZYL, and the status of clinical trials, development and/or regulatory timelines and market opportunities for obe-cel and our other product candidates.
These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and reflect our views only as of today. We assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please refer to the risks identified in today's press release and in our SEC filings, both available on the investors section of our website. On slide three, you'll see the agenda for today's call. As usual, Christian will provide an overview of our operational highlights. Rob will then discuss the financial results, and Christian will conclude with upcoming milestones and closing remarks. We'll then take questions. With that, I'm happy to turn it over to Christian.
Thanks, Amanda, and welcome everybody to our second quarter call. We're moving to slide number four. We had a very positive second quarter with strong AUCATZYL sales growth in our second year of launch now. When we look at the AUCATZYL revenue in the second quarter, we're at $45.7 million, which is a substantial increase over the $26 million that we had in the first quarter. For the first half of the year, we reached $71.9 million, which is close to the full year number that we had for our first year of launch last year. We see that the positive experience that the physicians are having with the product in the centers that we're active in, which is also reflected in the data that was collected by the ROCCA Consortium and the real-world database that was presented at the Tandem Meeting.
It builds a very strong foundation for the adoption of the product. I think the continued positive momentum that we're seeing in the market. We also obviously have continued to grow our presence, from a center perspective. We had indicated at the beginning of the year that we would reach in the range of 80 centers for the full year. We're now at the mid-year point, and we're above 80 centers already, and we continue to add centers in the second half of the year as well. When we look to the U.K., we started the launch at the beginning of the year. We do see strong initial adoption, and we obviously continue to also add treatment centers as we go through the remainder of the year. With that, we're going to move to slide number five.
I think we're at a very good path here and show very good momentum for the goals that we had set for ourselves for 2026. When we look at the net revenue projection that we had for the year, that was originally set at $120 million-$135 million, we're now at a point where we can actually increase our guidance to $140 million-$150 million for the full year. The gross margin development, we've seen a very nice move as we're going from the first to the second quarter. The first quarter was just positive on the gross margin. We now made a very positive step in the second quarter, which is driven by increased volumes in terms of batches that we manufactured at our plant at the Nucleus in the U.K.
But also a lot of the improvements that we made on the operations as well, both at the manufacturing side as well as the commercial side. All of that actually supports the gross margin development here. That obviously is a key driver towards the company moving towards profitability for this part of our business. When we look at the commercial expansion, we're now in more than 80 centers, as indicated. We continue to grow. We're particularly going to look at areas that may be underserved, where distances to centers are still relatively wide or large, and we want to make sure so that patients have adequate access and have centers within reasonable reach. As we're looking across the U.S., we do see that we actually have a very good distribution across the U.S.
We'll continue to add, obviously, additional centers in some of the states where we may not be active yet at this point. Moving to slide number six. I think as we're sort of moving through the ramp-up here on the launch, it was very important that we're obviously driving towards a very stable delivery of the product. With that, over time, as we're improving our margins of the product, reach profitability for our business in the relapsed refractory ALL indication. When we look back into last year, the first objective was to really get us to a place where we have very robust, consistent, high-quality product supply and services that we can provide to the centers. We achieved that within the first probably six to nine months during the course of the first year of launch last year.
We then started to shift our focus onto starting to optimize the processes and really drive for efficiency as well as obviously increasing the volumes. Together, those two parameters are really the key drivers to improve margins, and that's ultimately what gets us to a place where we expect to be in the not-too-distant future to get us to a place where our gross profit margin is going to reach somewhere in the range of 65%-70% for the ALL business. When we look at the development of gross margins, we're still negative in the fourth quarter last year. We were just on the other side, on the positive side in the Q1 this year, and we now have a healthy step up to a 55% gross margin in the second quarter.
We obviously expect to continue to drive the improvements the optimizations to drive for efficiency, which obviously are key drivers for the company to reach profitability in this line of business. Moving to slide seven, I would like just to briefly summarize where we are from a pipeline perspective. We see obviously a very strong foundation with obe-cel or AUCATZYL in the adult ALL setting. But it obviously also gives us a lot of opportunity in other B-cell-mediated diseases, both on the oncology but also the autoimmune side. As we're going through the news flow that we're expecting for the upcoming periods, I would start out with the key news flow that we're expecting for the end of this year, which is really focused first on the update for the CARLYSLE study at the ACR conference.
Which gives us an opportunity to really give us a longer-term view on the data and a clear understanding on the durability of the effect that we have seen in the systemic lupus patients. We will then look into additional updates coming from the FELIX study, where we have a few additional analysis plans to be presented by the end of the year. As we're going into the next product opportunity with AUTO8, which is a BCMA CD19 targeting product where we have an initial trial ongoing in light chain amyloidosis, we expect initial data to become available by the end of the year as well. As we're looking into the first part of 2027, the key focus there is going to be on the first data from our BOBCAT study in progressive multiple sclerosis patients. This will be the first dataset out of that study.
We expect a second dataset to become available second half of next year, where we expect longer follow-ups, more patients, and longer follow-up in that indication. Both obviously important data points as we go through the course of next year. When we then look to the end of next year, we're at the point where we expect to have the first data coming from the pivotal study, the CATULUS study in pediatric ALL. That study is enrolling very well. We expect that study to actually reach the end of enrollment by the end of the year. Then obviously we're getting into the follow-up and then the workup of that data, hopefully towards a filing by the end of next year, early 2028.
When we look a little further out into 2028, we do expect the phase II data from the LUMINA study in patients with lupus nephritis. There is quite a full set of data that we expect from the various studies going beyond the adult ALL opportunity, which we obviously continue to update you on as well. When we then look briefly on slide number eight, what to expect with regards to the BOBCAT study in progressive MS, we have in Q1 next year targeting the ACTRIMS meeting, which is obviously one of the key venues for MS data. We would, at that point, expect to have a total of 12 patients that we can report data from. We are going to look at safety, at PK/PD data, biomarker data, and certainly early clinical experience.
Looking for the second half of next year with a total of expected 18 patients, we will then have an opportunity to look at clinical response, particularly with the longer-term follow-ups. We will expect to have imaging data as well as expanding safety PK/PD biomarker data. We will, at that point, look at potential next steps for the program. We believe that when we look at this opportunity in MS, obviously the key clinical scores or EDSS scores, those obviously do contain elements that are either patient- or physician-reported.
That is also I would actually like to have about 12 months of follow-up with patients to understand that indeed the response is a true reflection of the product's activity, and we do not have an overlay of potential outcomes that are reported that might actually have a component that might be more of a placebo type of effect. With that, I would like to actually move over to slide number nine and hand over to Rob for the financial results.
Thanks, Christian, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone. I am pleased to review our financial results for what was a strong second quarter of 2026. I will be referring to slide 10 in the presentation. Our total net product revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $45.7 million. That is compared with $20.9 million in the second quarter of 2025 or compared to $26.2 million in the first quarter of 2026. This quarter reflects sales in both the U.S. and U.K. markets. While the U.K. market is showing strong adoption, it is still early in the launch, and contribution from the U.K. was relatively minor when compared to the U.S. As Christian noted, based on the recent performance, we have increased our net product revenue guidance, and we now expect full-year AUCATZYL revenue of between $140 million and $150 million.
We were also pleased to see further improvement in gross margin during the quarter to 55%, up from 6% in Q1 and negative in all prior quarters of 2025. The improvement was driven by a combination of increasing commercial production volume, operating model efficiency, and cost reduction initiatives that we undertook beginning earlier this year. We also began, for the first time, clinical production in our Nucleus facility in the second quarter, further improving our cost per batch economics. We expect gross margin to continue to improve towards a peak estimate of 65%-70% in the adult ALL market. Underlying the gross margin, our cost of sales in the second quarter totaled $20.5 million. That is compared to $24.4 million in the same period in 2025. The decrease was primarily driven by the improvements just mentioned, as well as lower inventory reserves and write-offs in the quarter.
Our research and development expense was roughly flat at $27.9 million for the second quarter of 2026, compared to $27.4 million during the same period in 2025. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased to $41.2 million for the second quarter of 2026, compared to $30.3 million in the same period in 2025. The increase was primarily due to employment-related costs and professional fees supporting commercialization activities in both the U.S. and U.K. In addition, the quarter also includes certain one-time items, such as termination-related expenses related to the strategic operational efficiency and cost reduction initiative that we announced back in April of this year. Our loss from operations for the second quarter was $43.8 million, as compared to $61.2 million for the same period in 2025.
Finally, net loss was $39.1 million for the three months ending June 30th, 2026, compared to $47.9 million for the same period in 2025. Last week, we announced that we entered into a strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors for the sale of notes of up to $250 million in aggregate principal amount as part of a five-year interest-only senior credit facility. As part of the transaction, an initial $75 million in principal amount was drawn at closing, and an additional $25 million will be available at our option for up to six months post-closing date. An additional $150 million of subsequent capital may become available in separate tranches upon achievement of certain pre-specified revenue milestones. This financing provides us with additional capital to support key inflection points for the business, including clinical data milestones in our oncology and autoimmune development programs that Christian just walked through.
We will have a meaningful opportunity to expand into new and larger markets, which we view as significant growth drivers, and the potential additional tranches provide optionality and flexibility as we advance these pipeline programs. Our cash equivalent, and marketable securities at June 30th, 2026, totaled $201.6 million. This excludes the initial drawdown on the Perceptive credit facility, which closed in July. This balance, combined with the anticipated net revenues and the first and second tranches of the credit facility totaling $100 million, provides us with cash runway into the second quarter of 2028. I will now hand back to Christian to wrap things up with expected milestones and conclusions.
Thanks, Rob. We're moving to slide number 12 for the conclusion. We believe Autolus is well-positioned for value creation. We have, on the one hand, the opportunities on the commercial AUCATZYL product in relapsed/refractory ALL patients on the adult population. We have shown very strong execution. We've seen a very positive market expansion, reached $71.9 million in net revenue for the first half of the year. This has allowed us to increase the guidance for the FY 2026 to $140 million to $150 million in net product revenue. We believe there's significant opportunity to grow the CAR T market share in this indication, and we're building on very strong physician interest, which is also, I think, exemplified by the interest to investigate obe-cel in the first-line setting in ALL in investigator-sponsored trials, which actually have already started.
We're looking forward to obviously seeing the results of those trials in the upcoming periods. When we then look in terms of the additional opportunities beyond the adult ALL population, we obviously have two pivotal studies ongoing. We have the pediatric ALL study ongoing, the CATULUS study, which is expected to read out by the end of next year. We have also the pivotal study, the LUMINA study, in lupus nephritis ongoing, which is expected to deliver data in 2028. Finally, with the opportunity beyond the classical rheumatology indications in the lupus setting, we're also looking at the opportunity in progressive multiple sclerosis, which gives us, I think, a shot at potentially getting to a very substantial commercial opportunity beyond what we are currently targeting in the oncology setting. This program is ongoing in a phase I study.
It's the BOBCAT study, and as indicated, we expect to provide data updates during the course of 2027. With that, we believe we actually have a set of interesting data catalysts and updates during the course of 2027, which will set us up well for then the expected opportunity for a launch in pediatric ALL in 2028 and subsequent launches in 2029 on the lupus side. When we look in terms of the overall setup of the company, obviously the foundation that we built is a very strong foundation, both from a manufacturing and from a commercial capability perspective. Obviously, having now experience in more than 80 centers, authorized treatment centers across the U.S. and approaching 20 authorized treatment centers also in the U.K., which provides a very strong foundation for all the new indications that we're also planning and obviously are developing here as well.
With that, I'd like to actually conclude and open up for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Salim Syed of Mizuho. Your line is open.
Great. Good morning, guys. Congrats on the progress. Just one from us on the guide. Christian, Rob, when you look at the high end of the guide, it would imply a slight decline versus the 2Q $45 million revenue. Is that just conservatism on your part, or are you expecting some sort of seasonality or other one-timers to affect the 3Q and 4Q revenue? Thank you.
Thanks, Salim. Very good question. When we look at the, obviously the first half of the year, we see obviously a pretty significant step-up in Q2. We believe that is in part driven by the positive data that was reported from the real-world experience at the Tandem Meetings. It certainly did drive a very significant increase in registrations onto the program in the second half of the first quarter. Those patients obviously were driving, to quite an extent, I think, the very positive outcome we've seen in Q2. So we think that creates a very good foundation for the rest of the year. There is certainly going to be elements of seasonality that we would expect during the course of the year. Given that, certainly we've seen that to some extent last year.
It is an element that we're considering, and we believe that the guidance that we're providing is reasonable and certainly has an element of prudence as well.
Okay. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Phipps of William Blair. Your line is open.
Great, thanks. This is Madeline on for Matt Phipps. Thanks for taking our question. On gross margins, could you provide any color on how we should think about the trajectory for the rest of the year, and maybe comment on potential timing to achieve that target of 65%-70%, given we're at 55% now? Thank you.
Thanks, Madeline. Obviously, a very good question. It's an area of significant focus from our side. Elements that obviously contributed to this substantial step up in gross margin in the second quarter, were, on the one hand, obviously, the number of batches that were manufactured through that period. Obviously an increase, as you could see on the commercial side, but we also did actually consolidate our clinical trial manufacturing into the Nucleus. So there is a larger amount of volume that we push through, both on the commercial as well as the clinical side. That obviously helps a lot in terms of the key base costs that we have in the operation, the fixed costs. Within the operation and obviously allows us to sort of actually get to a broader number of batches that can support that.
In addition, we have been very active on reviewing our entire operating model and looked at every aspect along the manufacturing process to ensure that we actually gain efficiency in the entirety of the manufacturing process, both production as well as product release. Those activities will continue, but we have made some significant changes during the course of the second quarter that we expect to actually have beneficial impact as we continue the rest of the year. Those are kind of the key areas that actually impact and actually did drive this very positive development that we are seeing. We are guiding to 65%-70% for kind of the more mature ALL business, which we expect to reach somewhere in the range of about 12-18 months. That is kind of the ballpark that we are currently seeing in terms of development, and those who will continue to update you on that.
But obviously an important step that we have taken now, and which allows us to actually build a very strong foundation for the business.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Yanan Zhu of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Oh, great. Thanks for taking our question and congrats on a great quarter. On the sales side, I was just wondering about your confidence about the next quarter or two. Given what visibility you might have into the third quarter, what is the confidence for another quarter with strong sales, given that you have this 74% jump from the first quarter to the second quarter? The main question is ability to maintain continued sales at the new foundation. Similar, I guess, along the lines of a prior question. If you can comment on market share within the CAR T category, and whether the growth is from switching patients or taking share or growing the market in a way. Thanks.
Yeah. Hi, Yanan. Thanks for joining. When we look at the kind of future growth, this is very much growing the overall CAR T market share is kind of the key area of focus for us. That's sort of where really most of the drive is to sort of make sure that that's kind of where we're headed with the product. Most of the dynamic we've seen so far has been both obviously within kind of the patient pool that already had prior access to CAR T, but that also included patients that were kind of somewhat outside of the group of patients that were considered to be suitable for CAR T therapy. That's already visible in the data that was presented by the ROCCA Consortium at Tandem Meetings when you look at the patient composition.
I think we're seeing a very positive dynamic. I think we see good continued activity and demand, and we expect that obviously to continue for the rest of the year and then continue to build momentum in 2027. So we're, I think, in a very good place there. As Celine asked before, there's probably going to be some elements of fluctuations that we may see between the quarters. We're very confident with the guidance we're giving for the full year, and I think we're very optimistic for 2027 as well.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Gil Blum of Needham & Company. Your line is open.
Good morning and good afternoon. I would like to add my congratulations on a very strong quarter. Just a couple of quick ones from us. As it relates to the updated SCR for lupus nephritis, we are assuming it is the same number of patients just with longer follow-up, if you have any additional color to give there. As a follow-up, you guys are already at 82 centers, and you are thinking about 80 centers by year-end. How should we think about how many centers you may have by year-end? Thank you.
Thanks, Gil. Really appreciate the question. With regards to the CARLYSLE study, obviously we are going to have a substantial portion of the patients that will have 12 months and longer follow-up, which we believe is going to be very meaningful and give us a real sense for the quality of the reset that I think we have seen early evidence for in our last data update for the CARLYSLE study. This obviously gives a substantially longer view on those patients, and believe that this is actually going to be, I think, very helpful to understand sort of the magnitude of the clinical benefit that we may be able to induce in the severe lupus patients. That is going to be, I think, the key focus is really the longer-term follow-up and the impact on the clinical outcomes.
With regards to the centers, as you rightly pointed out, we kind of hit the goal mid-year of being at 80 centers or above. I would assume we are going to be at the 90+ centers by the end of the year. Obviously that gives us a very good reach, and I think will allow us to make sure that the product is properly accessible across the entirety of the U.S. This is really one of the key areas we will continue to work on.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Simon Baker of Rothschild & Co. Your line is open.
Thank you for taking my question. Two quick ones, if I may, please. I wonder if you could give us any help on OpEx run rates. It seems that we've had a fairly similar performance in the last two quarters on SG&A. R&D has fluctuated a little bit. I'm just wondering how Q2 or H1 works for those two cost lines as an indicator for the second half. Secondly, a question on capacity. The guidance for this year implies probably about 300 patients treated. Given that volume and given the clinical trial material, which will obviously only increase going forward, I just wondered if you could give us an update on where we are for capacity at the Nucleus as it stands, and we know it's a very modular facility, how that can evolve over the coming years. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Simon. Very good question. I'll start with the capacity question and then hand over for the OpEx question to Rob. On the capacity side, we're very well set up from a capacity perspective. We have an ability, we believe, at this point, to fully serve the ALL market with our current setup, which is both the actual physical setup as well as from an operator and process perspective. So we're very well set up from a capacity perspective. We have an ability to obviously take on license additional clean rooms, and as we're getting ready to really substantially increase beyond the ALL, which includes both adults and peds, where we're very well set up today. Going beyond, obviously, we can mobilize additional clean rooms at the facility.
You don't want to do that too early, because at that point, it would actually increase your overall cost of goods, which you don't want to do because your operating costs go up with more capacity that, in that case, might be idle and not properly used. But we have adequate levels of capacity we can mobilize beyond where we're currently set up. From an ALL perspective, we're fully set up for both adults and pediatrics in the territories we're active in and can actually very well manage that. But it also gives you a good sense for the level of improvements we're expecting to see.
With that, obviously, what's ultimately going to drive as we're increasing the number of batches through the facility, well, actually, how this is going to help us drive down the overall cost per batch, but also increase, obviously, the margins overall for the products. With that, I think we're headed over to the OpEx question, and I think this is one for you, Rob.
Yep. Thanks for the question, Simon. I'll give you maybe a little bit more color. When you think about our R&D line, if you look at last year even, it's probably on average of $20 million-$29 million per quarter. What you'll see here is some variability around clinical production and when that actually hits in terms of the actual quarter of production and delivery to the sites.
You saw a step-up from Q1 to Q2 this year that was largely driven by enrollment in studies more than anything in some of the clinical production. Visit associated with that, it's like a one-time event within the study itself. But other than that, I think it's fair to say that we're not expecting any other kind of significant ramp-up or decrease. We're in the middle of executing a lot of this next wave of studies that Christian's walked through.
On the SG&A line, the one thing I would call out is predominantly in the first quarter and second quarter of this year, we also were taking some of these one-time charges associated with the restructuring that we announced back in April. So that is incorporated on this line for the total company. Again, if you look to kind of exit last year, we were in kind of a $30 million-$39 million range. And so when you adjust for some of those things, we're still in that ballpark with some very typical year-over-year inflation increases and those kind of things. But fairly stable from that standpoint. Again, we're not expecting any significant ramp-up or decrease other than some of those one-time items, which are largely behind us now with the second quarter.
That's great. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sebastiaan van der Schoot of Kempen. Your line is open.
Hi, team. Congrats on the excellent quarter. I was wondering whether you could provide some insights into those 80 activated sites. How many of those have actually already treated and have had experience with CAR T? Do you see an acceleration of the time between activation and first patient treatment? Regarding the capacity, you are also evaluating an automated system. When would you implement such a system? Is it already in for adult ALL indication, or would that only be if you also get approvals in autoimmune? Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Sebastiaan. With regards to the 80 sites, the vast majority of them actually have already treated a patient. We do see that actually that transition from getting activated and actually treating patients tends to be fairly quick. Quite often, actually, the activation is sort of motivated by one or two patients that are suitable for CAR T therapy at the center, and that is really driving the process, and obviously, I think is a key part of the motivation also for centers to get authorized and to get online. We are seeing a very positive dynamic there. Obviously, depending on the level of familiarity with obe-cel, most of the centers obviously that we now actually are adding have not been part of clinical trials with obe-cel before. That obviously is going to be then the first time that we are going to be using the product.
That is certainly, I think, the dynamic that we are seeing at the stage that we are at. Obviously early on, we had a lot of centers that already had experience, and we basically had all of the seamless roll forward in terms of the experience from the development to the commercial side. Now, most of the centers we are adding on are centers that actually, where obe-cel is going to be a properly new product, that has not been actually used at the center before.
That also obviously, certainly as the centers start building, does not lead to an acceleration, but a pretty steady pace that we are seeing across these centers from here on forward. That is sort of the expectation. With regards to the capacity question, obviously, as I indicated before to Simon, we are very well set up. Our manufacturing process is actually to quite a significant extent already automated.
We are going to expect to do another significant change on our current platform, probably over the next 12 to 15 months, which will get us to a very, very high level of automation on the system. Then obviously we are looking at additional technology for future opportunities. But in terms of the ALL setup, we are very well set up and we are basically getting a lot of the gains out of the operational improvements that we are doing in the facility, not just on the actual manufacturing process, but the entirety of the whole chain of events that from the input into the facility, products coming in to all processes through testing, through release, and then obviously the products reaching or being sent back to the treatment centers.
Every one of those steps actually is currently being evaluated, and we're working on improvements and efficiency gains, and it's been quite significant progress that we've already been able to actually realize and build into the operation at this point in time.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rajan Sharma of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Realize it's early, but could you help us understand what the U.K. contribution was to operational revenues in the quarter and what the initial feedback has been on the launch there? Perhaps if you could just help us understand also how we should think about contribution for the remainder of the year, and where you are in terms of center activation. Thank you.
Yep. Thanks a lot, Rajan. Really good question. When we look, obviously, at the U.K., the U.K. has about, give or take, 60 million people, which is about one sixth of the U.S. population. I think that's a ratio I think that sort of gets you sort of what's the potential ultimately and what's the ultimate patient numbers that you're going to have. They're certainly going to be about that ratio in terms of differential that we're going to expect. We do see a very positive initial momentum. Obviously, we've been active in a substantial number of clinical trials over the years in the U.K. So there's an element of familiarity with the product across a number of the academic centers. We now obviously have activated already a good number of them. We expect to be at around 20 or so by the end of the year.
That gives us, we believe, a good footprint across the U.K. Now, at this point, when we talk about the U.K., we're really talking about predominantly England. We're in the process of market access in Scotland, that will obviously then expand to the full size of the U.K. as well. So we're in, I think, on very good footing there, very good momentum. We do expect that will actually continue going forward for the second half of the year. So from, I think, an initial perspective, we do believe that we actually have seen very nice momentum. But given the difference in just the population size, we're looking at substantially less than 10% of U.S. sales that we're seeing at this point in time, so that gradually, I think, we'll probably get beyond that.
It's an early part of the launch, and we just have completed the second quarter of the launch in the U.K.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Emily Bodnar of H.C. Wainwright. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the quarter as well. Maybe can you frame the ALARIC readout for us by year-end and what you're kind of looking to see response rate-wise versus BCMA CAR T to maybe want to move this program forward? Thank you.
Thanks, Emily. On the ALARIC study, this is a study we're conducting with our colleagues at UCL. We are evaluating, obviously, the use of the BCMA program here in the light chain amyloidosis setting. What we're interested in is to see, obviously, a good level of activity, a good safety profile, which is important in these patients, and with that, I think, build the foundation for the program. I think at this point, it's probably too early to guide on how we might want to consider taking the program forward. We're in this phase I study, which is not complete at this point. This is the first data set coming out of the study, and certainly a bit premature to get a good feel for how the program might stack up.
I think it's worth keeping in mind that the activity that you expect in this indication is very high, and it's probably not going to be straightforward to actually look at differentiation based on response rates in this indication, certainly not on small patient numbers. But I think we want to see a very solid response rate in these patients and a good safety profile. I think those are the two hallmarks and the two pieces of information we're looking for.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Roger Song of Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hi. This is Fiona on for Roger. Congrats on an amazing quarter, and thanks for taking our question. Just following up on the question regarding the activated centers and physician adoption, can you comment on the utilization and repeat behavior from physicians among the centers that is more active or you have more visibility into? Is it more concentrated in certain centers, or is it more widely distributed? Thanks, and I will hop back in the queue.
Thanks a lot, Fiona. When we look at the centers that we've been active in for a longer period of time now, we do see a very positive adoption across those centers. They do report the patients slightly differently depending on the center. So you might actually have centers that report predominantly through one name, but actually, what's happening behind that name is actually just a broader team that's actually utilizing the product and actually employing it. Other centers actually report on the individual physician basis, and we have better visibility. So we see, but in general, we see a very nice level of adoption across obviously all the CAR T users at the centers.
One of the key things that we're obviously looking at, and we're certainly working on, is to see that we can expand, ultimately, the number of CAR T users in those centers to really get a much broader adoption in each one of the centers. That's one dimension. The other dimension that we're certainly looking at very carefully is obviously the referral patterns into the centers and obviously to look for ways to support the referrals into the centers as well.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Christian Itin for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much for joining us for our Q2 update. Obviously, a very positive quarter, a lot of good momentum, and we are looking forward to keeping you updated and talk to you at the latest at our next quarterly update, but most likely meet in between. Thank you very much and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-03Autolus Therapeutics Reports Preliminary Second Quarter 2026 Net Product Revenue and Announces Credit Facility of up to $250 Million with Perceptive Advisors
GlobeNewswire
Autolus Therapeutics Reports Preliminary Second Quarter 2026 Net Product Revenue and Announces Credit Facility of up to $250 Million with Perceptive Advisors
Company reports preliminary Q2 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue of approximately $45 million and gross margin of approximately 35% year-to-date FY 2026 sales guidance increased to $140 – $150 million, from $120 – $135 million Capital base strengthened through five-year, interest-only credit facility with $75 million funded at close Autolus to report Q2 2026 financial results on August 11, 2026 LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announced preliminary second quarter 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue of approximately $45 million and gross margin of approximately 35% year-to-date. Autolus also announced that it has entered into a strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors (“Perceptive”), a leading global healthcare specialist investor, for the sale of notes of up to $250 million in aggregate principal amount in a five-year, interest-only senior credit facility (the “Credit Facility”), subject to certain conditions. An initial $75 million principal amount of notes has been issued by Autolus to Perceptive on July 30, 2026, and an additional $25 million in aggregate principal amount will be available at Autolus’ option for up to six months post-closing. An additional $150 million in aggregate principal amount of subsequent capital may become available in separate tranches upon achievement of certain pre-specified revenue milestones. “In the second quarter, AUCATZYL sales increased approximately 70% over Q1 2026 and more than 100% compared to Q2 2025. The strong sales growth is driven by expanding product use within existing authorized treatment centers, as well as the addition of new centers coming online. Physician adoption of AUCATZYL is underscored by the real-world experience reported by the ROCCA consortium earlier in the year,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. “The increased product volumes, combined with the ongoing operational efficiency initiatives announced in April 2026, together drove a significant step up in gross margin from a negative gross margin of approximately 20% in the second half of 2025 to a positive gross margin of approximately 35% in the first half of 2026. We expect gross margin to continue…Read full documentShow less
Company reports preliminary Q2 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue of approximately $45 million and gross margin of approximately 35% year-to-date FY 2026 sales guidance increased to $140 – $150 million, from $120 – $135 million Capital base strengthened through five-year, interest-only credit facility with $75 million funded at close Autolus to report Q2 2026 financial results on August 11, 2026 LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announced preliminary second quarter 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue of approximately $45 million and gross margin of approximately 35% year-to-date. Autolus also announced that it has entered into a strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors (“Perceptive”), a leading global healthcare specialist investor, for the sale of notes of up to $250 million in aggregate principal amount in a five-year, interest-only senior credit facility (the “Credit Facility”), subject to certain conditions. An initial $75 million principal amount of notes has been issued by Autolus to Perceptive on July 30, 2026, and an additional $25 million in aggregate principal amount will be available at Autolus’ option for up to six months post-closing. An additional $150 million in aggregate principal amount of subsequent capital may become available in separate tranches upon achievement of certain pre-specified revenue milestones. “In the second quarter, AUCATZYL sales increased approximately 70% over Q1 2026 and more than 100% compared to Q2 2025. The strong sales growth is driven by expanding product use within existing authorized treatment centers, as well as the addition of new centers coming online. Physician adoption of AUCATZYL is underscored by the real-world experience reported by the ROCCA consortium earlier in the year,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. “The increased product volumes, combined with the ongoing operational efficiency initiatives announced in April 2026, together drove a significant step up in gross margin from a negative gross margin of approximately 20% in the second half of 2025 to a positive gross margin of approximately 35% in the first half of 2026. We expect gross margin to continue to improve.” “The strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors provides us with additional capital to support key inflection points for the business, including clinical data milestones in our oncology and autoimmune development programs, and is underpinned by the positive sales and gross margin development from our core adult lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) commercial business,” said Rob Dolski, Chief Financial Officer of Autolus. “With obe-cel’s unique profile we have a meaningful opportunity to expand into new and larger markets which we view as significant growth drivers. The potential additional tranches in this financing, if drawn down, provide optionality and flexibility to invest in these larger autoimmune indications.” “Our goal is to support technologies that carry a meaningful opportunity to help patients, and we are pleased to partner with Autolus in their mission to deliver obe-cel to people with cancer and autoimmune diseases. With this facility, we are providing flexible growth capital to enable the Company to deliver on its strategic priorities and catalyze value creation,” said Sam Chawla, Portfolio Manager at Perceptive Advisors. “This financing reflects our confidence in the leadership team at Autolus to continue to deliver on obe-cel’s commercial and development plans.” The Credit Facility will bear interest at a rate per annum equal to the one month secured overnight financing rate (“SOFR”) (subject to a SOFR floor of 3.50%), plus 7.25%, and will be interest-only until maturity. Interest margin reductions may become available upon achievement of certain revenue milestones. At closing of the Credit Facility, Autolus issued Perceptive a warrant to purchase up to 3.5 million American Depositary Receipts (ADSs), each ADS representing one ordinary share, at an exercise price of $1.9314 per ADS, equal to 125% of the 30-day VWAP immediately preceding the closing date. The combined first and second tranches from the Credit Facility, totaling $100 million in aggregate principal amount, together with Autolus’ most recently reported cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, provide funding into Q2 2028, and are expected to allow the Company to deliver on key strategic priorities. Autolus will report full second quarter 2026 financial results on August 11, 2026. Further information on the terms of the credit facility can be found in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the Credit Facility. Jefferies International Limited acted as debt advisor and Cooley served as legal advisor to Autolus Therapeutics in connection with the Credit Facility. Latham & Watkins served as legal advisor to Perceptive. About Autolus Therapeutics plcAutolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as "may," "will," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," and "believes." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Autolus’ future expectations, plans and prospects, including guidance on 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue and improvement in gross margin, and the impact of recently announced restructuring activities; the impact of the Credit Facility on Autolus’ anticipated cash runway; Autolus’s ability to achieve the milestones under the Credit Facility, including with respect to the availability of the remaining tranches of the Credit Facility and interest margin reductions; the therapeutic potential and expected clinical benefits of AUCATZYL for adult patients with r/r B-ALL and obe-cel in additional indications including LN and progressive MS; Autolus’s ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for obe-cel for adult r/r B-ALL in additional territories and the timing thereof; expectations regarding the commercialization, marketing and manufacturing of AUCATZYL for adult r/r B-ALL, including expanding into additional territories and the related timing of reaching patients in such territories; the development of obe-cel in autoimmune indications and of additional product candidates, including statements regarding the initiation, timing, progress and the results of clinical studies or trials and related preparatory work; the period during which the results of clinical studies or trials will become available; Autolus’ plans to expand, develop and enhance its manufacturing activities; and Autolus’ pursuit of expanded market access across Europe. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks identified in the section titled "Risk Factors" in Autolus' Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), on March 27, 2026 and any of its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Autolus' subsequent filings with the SEC. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Autolus undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing Autolus’ views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-03Autolus Therapeutics to Report Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on August 11, 2026
GlobeNewswire
Autolus Therapeutics to Report Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on August 11, 2026
LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announced that the Company will release its second quarter 2026 financial results and operational highlights before open of U.S. markets on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. Management will host a conference call and webcast at 8:30am EDT / 1:30pm BST to discuss the Company’s financial results and provide a general business update. Conference call participants should pre-register using this link to receive the dial-in numbers and a personal PIN, which are required to access the conference call. A simultaneous audio webcast and replay will be accessible on the events section of Autolus’ website. About Autolus Therapeutics plcAutolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-15Autolus Therapeutics PLC (AUTL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Revenue Surge and Strategic ...
GuruFocus.com
Autolus Therapeutics PLC (AUTL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Revenue Surge and Strategic ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: May 14, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Autolus Therapeutics PLC (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported a significant increase in revenue for Q1 2026, reaching $26.2 million compared to $9 million in Q1 2025. The company achieved a positive gross margin for the first time, indicating improved operational efficiency and cost management. AUTL has expanded its market presence with over 73 centers in the U.S. and more than 10 active centers in the U.K., with plans to exceed 80 centers by year-end. The company is seeing positive physician experiences and strong patient outcomes, with a 90% overall response rate and a favorable safety profile. AUTL is actively expanding its clinical trials and development programs, including studies in pediatric populations and new indications such as lupus nephritis and multiple sclerosis. Despite revenue growth, AUTL reported a net loss of $71.6 million for Q1 2026, slightly higher than the $70.2 million loss in Q1 2025. The company's cash reserves decreased from $300.7 million at the end of 2025 to $229.4 million by March 31, 2026, due to operational expenses. AUTL's selling, general, and administrative expenses increased significantly to $39.9 million in Q1 2026, up from $29.5 million in Q1 2025. The company has undergone a reduction in force by 13% as part of its operational efficiency and cost reduction initiatives. AUTL faces challenges in market expansion, particularly in Europe, where market access and reimbursement negotiations are ongoing and complex. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with AUTL. Is AUTL fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Can you provide more details on the market expansion and why the guidance for this year remains unchanged? A: The market dynamics are positive, but it's still early in the year. We want to see how these dynamics play out over time. The current guidance is reasonable, and we will update the market if we observe a different trajectory. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: Are there any potential challenges in enrolling patients for the Lumina study in lupus nephritis given the crowded field? A: We are targeting a refractory population not served by the standard of care, and the trial size is limited to 30 patients. We are confident in our ab…Read full documentShow less
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: May 14, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Autolus Therapeutics PLC (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported a significant increase in revenue for Q1 2026, reaching $26.2 million compared to $9 million in Q1 2025. The company achieved a positive gross margin for the first time, indicating improved operational efficiency and cost management. AUTL has expanded its market presence with over 73 centers in the U.S. and more than 10 active centers in the U.K., with plans to exceed 80 centers by year-end. The company is seeing positive physician experiences and strong patient outcomes, with a 90% overall response rate and a favorable safety profile. AUTL is actively expanding its clinical trials and development programs, including studies in pediatric populations and new indications such as lupus nephritis and multiple sclerosis. Despite revenue growth, AUTL reported a net loss of $71.6 million for Q1 2026, slightly higher than the $70.2 million loss in Q1 2025. The company's cash reserves decreased from $300.7 million at the end of 2025 to $229.4 million by March 31, 2026, due to operational expenses. AUTL's selling, general, and administrative expenses increased significantly to $39.9 million in Q1 2026, up from $29.5 million in Q1 2025. The company has undergone a reduction in force by 13% as part of its operational efficiency and cost reduction initiatives. AUTL faces challenges in market expansion, particularly in Europe, where market access and reimbursement negotiations are ongoing and complex. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with AUTL. Is AUTL fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Can you provide more details on the market expansion and why the guidance for this year remains unchanged? A: The market dynamics are positive, but it's still early in the year. We want to see how these dynamics play out over time. The current guidance is reasonable, and we will update the market if we observe a different trajectory. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: Are there any potential challenges in enrolling patients for the Lumina study in lupus nephritis given the crowded field? A: We are targeting a refractory population not served by the standard of care, and the trial size is limited to 30 patients. We are confident in our ability to enroll the study both in the U.S. and internationally. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: What level of data do you expect from the Bobcat study in multiple sclerosis this year? A: The Bobcat study is a dose escalation study. We expect initial data on safety, cellular dynamics, and pharmacokinetic markers. More comprehensive data on disease scores will be available next year. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: Can you elaborate on the UK rollout and how it compares to the U.S. experience? A: The UK rollout is progressing quickly, potentially faster than the U.S. The centralized decision-making process in the UK accelerates patient access to CAR-T therapy, and there is strong support from the NHS. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: How do you view the commercialization strategy for multiple sclerosis? Would you consider partnering? A: Given the large and distributed patient population in multiple sclerosis, we are considering a commercial approach that may involve collaboration with a partner. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: What are the near-term and long-term growth drivers for Ocasil revenue, and are there further optimization plans? A: Growth will be driven by increasing physician adoption at existing centers and expanding market share. Optimization is ongoing, focusing on reducing work hours per product and increasing production volume to lower costs. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: Could Autolus become profitable at the company level by late 2027? A: We expect the ALL business to become profitable in 2028. Company-level profitability will depend on reinvestment rates leading up to that time. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO Q: What is the expected trajectory for gross margins, and when do you anticipate reaching peak margins? A: We expect continuous improvement in gross margins throughout the year, with significant gains in productivity anticipated this year. Peak margins are expected as we reach higher production volumes, likely within four to five years. - Dr. Christian Iten, CEO For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-14Autolus Therapeutics Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Autolus Therapeutics Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR? Here are five stocks we like better. Autolus Therapeutics said first-quarter 2026 product revenue rose to $26.2 million, driven by early traction for AUCATZYL in the U.S. and U.K., and it reaffirmed full-year revenue guidance of $120 million to $135 million. The company reported a positive gross margin for the quarter and expects manufacturing efficiency gains to support further improvement, targeting a 65% to 70% gross profit margin in its peak adult ALL business. Autolus ended the quarter with GBP 229.4 million in cash and investments and said its current resources, including anticipated AUCATZYL revenue, should fund operations into the fourth quarter of 2027. Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported higher first-quarter 2026 product revenue and said its commercial launch of AUCATZYL is gaining traction in the U.S. and U.K., while reiterating full-year revenue guidance for the cell therapy. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Christian Itin said the company had a “very good first quarter,” with $26.2 million in revenue booked. He said Autolus is seeing “nice traction building” in the U.S. and in the early stages of its U.K. launch, where more than 10 centers are already active under the NHS access program. → Rocket Lab Just Hit a New All-Time High—Time to Buy or Let It Breathe? Autolus maintained its 2026 guidance for AUCATZYL net product revenue of $120 million to $135 million, including contributions from the U.S. and U.K. markets. Itin said the company has about 73 U.S. centers active and expects to increase that number beyond 80 by the end of the year. Chief Financial Officer Rob Dolski said total net product revenue for the first quarter was $26.2 million, compared with $9 million in the first quarter of 2025. He said the quarter reflected U.S. sales and Autolus’ first quarter in the U.K. market, though the U.K. contribution was minimal because the launch is still early. → MP Materials Is Quietly Building a Rare Earth Powerhouse The company shifted to a positive gross margin in the quarter, with $1.6 million, compared with losses in prior quarters of 2025. Dolski said cost of sales totaled GBP 24.6 million, compared with GBP 18 million in the same period last year, primarily reflecting higher AUCATZYL sales. Itin said gross margin improvement was driven by higher volume and operational changes, particul…Read full documentShow less
Interested in Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR? Here are five stocks we like better. Autolus Therapeutics said first-quarter 2026 product revenue rose to $26.2 million, driven by early traction for AUCATZYL in the U.S. and U.K., and it reaffirmed full-year revenue guidance of $120 million to $135 million. The company reported a positive gross margin for the quarter and expects manufacturing efficiency gains to support further improvement, targeting a 65% to 70% gross profit margin in its peak adult ALL business. Autolus ended the quarter with GBP 229.4 million in cash and investments and said its current resources, including anticipated AUCATZYL revenue, should fund operations into the fourth quarter of 2027. Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) reported higher first-quarter 2026 product revenue and said its commercial launch of AUCATZYL is gaining traction in the U.S. and U.K., while reiterating full-year revenue guidance for the cell therapy. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Christian Itin said the company had a “very good first quarter,” with $26.2 million in revenue booked. He said Autolus is seeing “nice traction building” in the U.S. and in the early stages of its U.K. launch, where more than 10 centers are already active under the NHS access program. → Rocket Lab Just Hit a New All-Time High—Time to Buy or Let It Breathe? Autolus maintained its 2026 guidance for AUCATZYL net product revenue of $120 million to $135 million, including contributions from the U.S. and U.K. markets. Itin said the company has about 73 U.S. centers active and expects to increase that number beyond 80 by the end of the year. Chief Financial Officer Rob Dolski said total net product revenue for the first quarter was $26.2 million, compared with $9 million in the first quarter of 2025. He said the quarter reflected U.S. sales and Autolus’ first quarter in the U.K. market, though the U.K. contribution was minimal because the launch is still early. → MP Materials Is Quietly Building a Rare Earth Powerhouse The company shifted to a positive gross margin in the quarter, with $1.6 million, compared with losses in prior quarters of 2025. Dolski said cost of sales totaled GBP 24.6 million, compared with GBP 18 million in the same period last year, primarily reflecting higher AUCATZYL sales. Itin said gross margin improvement was driven by higher volume and operational changes, particularly at the company’s manufacturing plant. He said Autolus expects to produce twice as much product this year as last year with staffing “at or below” last year’s levels. → Micron Investors Face a High-Stakes Moment After the Latest Rally Itin said the company is targeting a 65% to 70% gross profit margin for the peak adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, business. In response to an analyst question, he said the company expects the ALL business to cross into profitability in 2028, though companywide profitability will depend on reinvestment levels. Research and development expenses declined to GBP 21.2 million in the first quarter from GBP 26.7 million a year earlier. Dolski attributed the decrease primarily to lower development activity, including clinical trial and clinical manufacturing supply costs and capacity mobilization costs, mostly related to obe-cel. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose to GBP 39.9 million from GBP 29.5 million in the prior-year quarter. Dolski said the increase was tied to salaries, employment-related costs and professional fees supporting commercialization in the U.S. and U.K., as well as one-time termination-related expenses from an operational efficiency and cost reduction initiative announced in April. Loss from operations was GBP 59.5 million for the three months ended March 31, compared with GBP 65.2 million a year earlier. Net loss was GBP 71.6 million, compared with GBP 70.2 million in the first quarter of 2025. Autolus ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of GBP 229.4 million, down from GBP 300.7 million at Dec. 31, 2025. Dolski said the company expects its current and projected cash resources, including anticipated AUCATZYL revenue, to fund operations into the fourth quarter of 2027. Itin said physician experience with AUCATZYL has been positive, pointing to data discussed at the Tandem Meetings as part of the Cell Therapy Consortium presentation. He said about 60% of commercial patients were represented in that data set, which showed no high-grade cytokine release syndrome, 3% high-grade ICANS and an overall response rate above 90%. He also said the company is seeing use expand into older patients, patients with more comorbidities and patients with limited tumor burden. In response to analysts, Itin said most growth is coming from centers already active with the product, as more physicians within those centers gain experience and begin using it more broadly across the label. Asked about U.K. rollout dynamics, Itin said the launch appears at least as fast as the initial U.S. launch and may be faster. He cited centralized decision-making within the U.K. system and NHS efforts to increase awareness of the treatment. Autolus said it does not plan to break out U.K. revenue initially, though Itin said the company may do so toward the end of the year. Autolus outlined several upcoming clinical milestones for obe-cel and related programs. Itin said the company expects longer-term follow-up from the CARLYSLE study in systemic lupus erythematosus by year-end 2026. He said the company is also expecting initial clinical data from the BOBCAT phase 1 study in progressive multiple sclerosis and initial data from the ALARIC phase 1 study of AUTO8 in light chain amyloidosis, conducted in collaboration with UCL. The company expects full BOBCAT data in 2027. Itin said the initial multiple sclerosis readout this year is expected to focus on safety, pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic markers, including whether the product is present in cerebrospinal fluid. He said more meaningful information on disease scores is expected in 2027 after longer follow-up. Autolus also expects pediatric phase 2 data from the CATULUS study by the end of 2027. Itin said the company has aligned with the FDA on protocol design and potential registration support. In lupus nephritis, the LUMINA phase 2 study is enrolling in the U.S. and certain European countries, with data expected in 2028. Itin said the trial is intended to enroll 30 refractory patients and that Autolus is not concerned about enrollment. In multiple sclerosis, Itin said Autolus is exploring commercialization approaches that could include collaboration with a partner, given the larger and more distributed patient population. Autolus Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of next-generation, programmed T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company leverages proprietary technologies to engineer autologous T cells that target and eradicate tumor cells, with the aim of improving safety, efficacy and durability over existing cell therapies. Its R&D platform integrates antigen receptor design, gene editing and manufacturing optimization to generate candidates tailored for specific hematologic malignancies and solid tumor indications. The company's leading pipeline candidates include AUTO1, an optimized CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and AUTO3, a dual-targeted CD19/22 CAR-T program in development for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Autolus Therapeutics Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for May 2026.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-14Autolus Therapeutics Reports First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Updates
GlobeNewswire
Autolus Therapeutics Reports First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Updates
AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) net product revenue of $26.2 million for the first quarter of 2026, reflecting strong launches in the US and most recently the UK Company achieves positive gross margin for the acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) business Cost reduction initiative to drive gross profit margin improvement and path to profitability for the ALL business underway Obe-cel clinical development programs on track with trial enrollment ongoing in lupus nephritis, pediatric ALL and progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) Conference call to be held today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., May 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announces its operational and financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. “In the first quarter, Autolus continued to expand market share for AUCATZYL in the US based on strong physician experience in adult ALL, and supported by reliable, high-quality product delivery. Our UK launch, which began in January, is off to a strong start, and we are expanding our reach in this market as well. We are pleased to report a turn to positive gross margin in the first quarter, and we expect continued improvement as we grow sales and manage costs,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. Dr. Itin continued, “Beyond adult ALL, given obe-cel’s established profile, we remain focused on broadening obe-cel’s utility in additional indications. Our Phase 2 pivotal studies, CATULUS in pediatric relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor ALL and LUMINA in severe lupus nephritis patients, and our Phase 1 BOBCAT trial in progressive MS, are underway and progressing well.” Dr. Itin concluded, “With good momentum with AUCATZYL and our pipeline, we continue optimizing our operating model and driving cost efficiency. The recently announced initiative will further enhance our margins, support scalable growth and position Autolus for long-term value creation.” Product and Pipeline Updates: AUCATZYL® Launch Autolus reported net product revenue of $26.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $9.…Read full documentShow less
AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) net product revenue of $26.2 million for the first quarter of 2026, reflecting strong launches in the US and most recently the UK Company achieves positive gross margin for the acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) business Cost reduction initiative to drive gross profit margin improvement and path to profitability for the ALL business underway Obe-cel clinical development programs on track with trial enrollment ongoing in lupus nephritis, pediatric ALL and progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) Conference call to be held today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., May 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies and candidates, today announces its operational and financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. “In the first quarter, Autolus continued to expand market share for AUCATZYL in the US based on strong physician experience in adult ALL, and supported by reliable, high-quality product delivery. Our UK launch, which began in January, is off to a strong start, and we are expanding our reach in this market as well. We are pleased to report a turn to positive gross margin in the first quarter, and we expect continued improvement as we grow sales and manage costs,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. Dr. Itin continued, “Beyond adult ALL, given obe-cel’s established profile, we remain focused on broadening obe-cel’s utility in additional indications. Our Phase 2 pivotal studies, CATULUS in pediatric relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor ALL and LUMINA in severe lupus nephritis patients, and our Phase 1 BOBCAT trial in progressive MS, are underway and progressing well.” Dr. Itin concluded, “With good momentum with AUCATZYL and our pipeline, we continue optimizing our operating model and driving cost efficiency. The recently announced initiative will further enhance our margins, support scalable growth and position Autolus for long-term value creation.” Product and Pipeline Updates: AUCATZYL® Launch Autolus reported net product revenue of $26.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $9.0 million for the same period the prior year. AUCATZYL launched in the UK in January 2026 and is now available under routine commissioning. Data from the ROCCA (Real-World Outcomes Collaborative for CAR T in Adult ALL) consortium covering commercial patients during the first year of launch of AUCATZYL in the US was presented at the TANDEM meeting in February 2026. This real-world data showed consistency in both safety and efficacy with the pivotal FELIX clinical trial that was the basis for regulatory approvals. The ROCCA consortium registry covered approximately 60% of US commercial patients at a data cutoff of January 2026. Obe-cel in pediatric r/r B-ALL The Phase 2 portion of the ongoing CATULUS Phase 1 trial of obe-cel in pediatric relapsed or refractory (r/r) B-cell precursor ALL (B-ALL) patients is underway and Autolus expects to report data at the end of 2027. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted regenerative medicine advanced therapy (RMAT) designation to obe-cel for the treatment of pediatric patients with r/r B-ALL. Obe-cel in lupus nephritis Data from the Phase 1 CARLYSLE trial in patients with severe refractory systemic lupus erythematosus supported progression of obe-cel as a treatment for lupus nephritis (LN) and selection of the recommended Phase 2 dose of 50 million cells. Following alignment with the FDA on a potential registrational path to approval, the pivotal LUMINA Phase 2 trial is enrolling and the Company expects to report data in 2028. Obe-cel in progressive MS Autolus has advanced obe-cel into initial clinical development to explore treatment in progressive MS. The Phase 1 trial, expected to include up to 18 adult patients, is enrolling and will determine the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of obe-cel in participants with refractory progressive forms of MS. The Company expects to report initial data from the trial at the end of 2026 and full data in 2027. AUTO8 in Light-Chain Amyloidosis The Phase 1 ALARIC trial evaluating AUTO8 in light-chain amyloidosis is ongoing and initial data are expected to be reported at the end of 2026. Operational Updates: In April 2026, Autolus announced a strategic initiative and plan to improve operational efficiency and reduce operating expenses. As part of this initiative, Autolus is implementing a reduction in force affecting approximately 13% of its existing overall workforce, impacting all areas of the business. The actions are expected to reduce operating expenses by approximately $15 million on an annualized basis beginning in 2027. As a result of the reorganization, which includes employee-related actions taken beginning in the second half of 2025, the Company expects to incur total restructuring charges of approximately $8 million, consisting primarily of employee severance and related costs, the majority of which will be recognized in the first half of 2026. The implementation of the workforce reduction plan is expected to be substantially complete by the third quarter of 2026. In April 2026, the Company held a virtual investor event entitled: Spotlight on Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Program. The event included key opinion leaders Dr. Jae Park from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Dr. Lori Muffly from Stanford School of Medicine; Dr. Elias Jabbour from MD Anderson Cancer Center and Dr. Michael Pulsipher from University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute. A recording of the event is available in the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website, under “Events”. Outlook: Autolus reiterates its full year 2026 outlook for AUCATZYL net product revenue of between $120 million to $135 million, up from $74 million in 2025, as well as continued positive gross margin in 2026. Based on current operating plans, including anticipated AUCATZYL net revenues, Autolus expects that its current and projected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund the Company’s operations into Q4 2027. Summary of Anticipated News Flow: Financial Results for the Quarter Ended March 31, 2026 Product revenue, net increased to $26.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $9.0 million the same period in 2025. Cost of sales increased to $24.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $18.0 million the same period in 2025. This increase was primarily due to costs related to increased product sales of AUCATZYL in the three months ended March 31, 2026 including inventory reserves and write offs compared to the same period in the prior year. Gross profit was $1.6 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared to a loss in all prior quarters. Research and development expenses decreased to $21.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $26.7 million in the same period in 2025. This change was primarily due to a decrease in research and development activities including clinical trial and clinical manufacturing supply costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $39.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $29.5 million in the same period in 2025. This increase was primarily due to salaries, other employment-related costs and professional fees supporting commercialization activities in the US and UK. In addition, this quarter also included one-time termination-related expenses, relating to the strategic operational efficiency and cost reduction initiative announced in April 2026. Loss from operations for the three months ended March 31, 2026, was $59.5 million, as compared to $65.2 million for the same period in 2025. Net loss was $71.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, compared to $70.2 million for the same period in 2025. Basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share for the three months ended March 31, 2026, totaled $(0.27), compared to basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share of $(0.26) for the same period in 2025. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at March 31, 2026, totaled $229.4 million, as compared to $300.7 million at December 31, 2025. The decrease was primarily driven by net cash used in operating activities. Conference Call Management will host a conference call and webcast today at 8:30am EDT/1:30pm BST to discuss the company’s financial results. Conference call participants should pre-register using this link to receive the dial-in numbers and a personal PIN, which are required to access the conference call. A simultaneous audio webcast and replay will be accessible on the events section of Autolus’ website at https://www.autolus.com/investor-relations-media/events/. About Autolus Therapeutics plc Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. About AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) AUCATZYL is a B-lymphocyte antigen CD19 (CD19) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy designed to overcome the limitations in clinical activity and safety compared to current CD19 CAR T cell therapies. AUCATZYL is designed with a fast target binding off-rate to minimize excessive activation of the programmed T cells. AUCATZYL was approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia on November 8, 2024, and was granted conditional marketing authorization by MHRA in the UK and EMA in the EU in 2025. INDICATION AUCATZYL® is a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days following the first infusion (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). The most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%), and hypoxia (19%). Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). Sixty-eight percent of patients (51/75) experienced CRS after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 10 days). Among patients with CRS, the most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%) and hypoxia (19%). The primary treatment for CRS was tocilizumab (73%; 55/75), with patients also receiving corticosteroids (21%; 16/75). Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage CRS. During and following treatment with AUCATZYL, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of CRS daily for at least 7 days following each infusion. Continue to monitor patients for CRS for at least 2 weeks following each infusion with AUCATZYL. Counsel patients to seek immediate medical attention should signs or symptoms of CRS occur at any time. At the first sign of CRS, immediately evaluate the patient for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Neurologic Toxicities Neurologic toxicities including Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS), which were fatal or life-threatening, occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. Neurologic toxicities were reported in 64% (64/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 12% of patients. The median time to onset of neurologic toxicities was 10 days (range: 1 to 246 days) with a median duration of 13 days (range: 1 to 904 days). Fifty-five percent of patients (35/64) experienced neurologic toxicities after the first infusion but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 11 days). Among patients with neurologic toxicities, the most common symptoms (> 5%) included ICANS (38%), headache (34%), encephalopathy (33%), dizziness (22%), tremor (13%), anxiety (9%), insomnia (9%), and delirium (8%). Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS) ICANS events occurred in 24% (24/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 7% (7/100) of patients. Of the 24 patients who experienced ICANS, 33% (8/24) experienced an onset after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL. The median time to onset for ICANS events after the first infusion was 8 days (range: 1 to 10 days) and 6.5 days (range: 2 to 22 days) after the second infusion, with a median duration of 8.5 days (range: 1 to 53 days). Eighty-eight percent (21/24) of patients received treatment for ICANS. All treated patients received high-dose corticosteroids and 42% (10/24) of patients received anti-epileptics prophylactically. Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage ICANS. During and following AUCATZYL administration, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS. Following treatment with AUCATZYL, monitor patients daily for at least 7 days. Continue to monitor patients for at least 2 weeks following treatment with AUCATZYL. Avoid driving for at least 2 weeks after each infusion. Counsel patients to seek medical attention should signs or symptoms of neurologic toxicity/ ICANS occur. At the first sign of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS, immediately evaluate patients for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Prolonged Cytopenias Patients may exhibit cytopenias including anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia for several weeks after treatment with lymphodepleting chemotherapy and AUCATZYL. In patients who were responders to AUCATZYL, Grade ≥ 3 cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 30 following AUCATZYL infusion were observed in 71% (29/41) of patients and included neutropenia (66%, 27/41) and thrombocytopenia (54%, 22/41). Grade 3 or higher cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 60 following AUCATZYL infusion was observed in 27% (11/41) of patients and included neutropenia (17%, 7/41) and thrombocytopenia (15%, 6/41). Monitor blood counts after AUCATZYL infusion. Infections Severe, including life-threatening and fatal infections occurred in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Non-COVID-19 infections of all grades occurred in 67% (67/100) of patients. Grade 3 or higher non-COVID-19 infections occurred in 41% (41/100) of patients. AUCATZYL should not be administered to patients with clinically significant active systemic infections. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infection before and after AUCATZYL infusion and treat appropriately. Administer prophylactic antimicrobials according to local guidelines. Grade 3 or higher febrile neutropenia was observed in 26% (26/100) of patients after AUCATZYL infusion and may be concurrent with CRS. In the event of febrile neutropenia, evaluate for infection and manage with broad-spectrum antibiotics, fluids, and other supportive care as medically indicated. Viral reactivation, potentially severe or life-threatening, can occur in patients treated with drugs directed against B cells. There is no experience with manufacturing AUCATZYL for patients with a positive test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or with active hepatitis B virus (HBV) or active hepatitis C virus (HCV). Perform screening for HBV, HCV and HIV in accordance with clinical guidelines before collection of cells for manufacturing. Hypogammaglobulinemia Hypogammaglobulinemia and B-cell aplasia can occur in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Hypogammaglobulinemia was reported in 10% (10/100) of patients treated with AUCATZYL including Grade 3 events in 2 patients (2%). Immunoglobulin levels should be monitored after treatment with AUCATZYL and managed per institutional guidelines including infection precautions, antibiotic or antiviral prophylaxis, and immunoglobulin replacement. The safety of immunization with live viral vaccines during or following treatment with AUCATZYL has not been studied. Vaccination with live viral vaccines is not recommended for at least 6 weeks prior to the start of lymphodepleting chemotherapy treatment, during AUCATZYL treatment, and until immune recovery following treatment with AUCATZYL. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis/Macrophage Activation Syndrome (HLH/MAS) HLH/MAS including fatal and life-threatening reactions occurred after treatment with AUCATZYL. HLH/MAS was reported in 2% (2/100) of patients and included Grade 3 and Grade 4 events with a time of onset at Day 22 and Day 41, respectively. One patient experienced a concurrent ICANS events after AUCATZYL infusion and died due to sepsis with ongoing HLH/MAS that had not resolved. Administer treatment for HLH/MAS according to institutional standards. Hypersensitivity Reactions Serious hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, may occur due to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an excipient used in AUCATZYL. Observe patients for hypersensitivity reactions during and after AUCATZYL infusion. Secondary Malignancies Patients treated with AUCATZYL may develop secondary malignancies. T cell malignancies have occurred following treatment of hematologic malignancies with BCMA- and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapies. Mature T cell malignancies, including CAR-positive tumors, may present as soon as weeks following infusion, and may include fatal outcomes. Monitor lifelong for secondary malignancies. In the event that a secondary malignancy occurs, contact Autolus at 1-855-288-5227 for reporting and to obtain instructions on the collection of patient samples for testing. Adverse Reactions The safety of AUCATZYL was evaluated in the FELIX study in which 100 patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) received AUCATZYL at a median dose of 410 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells (range: 10 to 480 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells with 90% of patients receiving the recommended dose of 410 × 106 +/- 25%). The most common serious adverse reactions of any Grade (incidence ≥ 2%) included infections-pathogen unspecified, febrile neutropenia, ICANS, CRS, fever, bacterial infectious disorders, encephalopathy, fungal infections, hemorrhage, respiratory failure, hypotension, ascites, HLH/MAS, thrombosis and hypoxia. Nine patients (9%) experienced fatal adverse reactions which included infections (sepsis, pneumonia, peritonitis), ascites, pulmonary embolism, acute respiratory distress syndrome, HLH/MAS and ICANS. Of the 9 patients, five patients who died from infections had pre-existing and ongoing neutropenia prior to receiving bridging therapy, lymphodepletion chemotherapy treatment and/or AUCATZYL. Please see full Prescribing Information, including BOXED WARNING and Medication Guide. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as "may," "will," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," and "believes." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Autolus’ future expectations, plans and prospects, including guidance on 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue and gross margin, and the impact of recently announced restructuring activities; Autolus’ anticipated cash runway; the therapeutic potential and expected clinical benefits of AUCATZYL for adult patients with r/r B-ALL and obe-cel in additional indications including LN and progressive MS; Autolus’ ability to generate revenues from AUCATZYL; Autolus’ ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for obe-cel for adult r/r B-ALL in additional territories and the timing thereof; expectations regarding the commercialization, marketing and manufacturing of AUCATZYL for adult r/r B-ALL, including expanding into additional territories and the related timing of reaching patients in such territories; the development of obe-cel in autoimmune indications and of additional product candidates, including statements regarding the initiation, timing, progress and the results of clinical studies or trials and related preparatory work; the period during which the results of clinical studies or trials will become available; Autolus’ plans to expand, develop and enhance its manufacturing activities; and Autolus’ pursuit of expanded market access across Europe. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks identified in the section titled "Risk Factors" in Autolus' Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), on March 27, 2026 and any of its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Autolus' subsequent filings with the SEC. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Autolus undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing Autolus’ views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected]
TranscriptFY2026 Q12026-05-14FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 103 paragraphs
FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Good day everyone, and welcome to Autolus Therapeutics first quarter 2026 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to the Executive Director of Investor Relations, Amanda Cray. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Carmen. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining us on today's call. With me, our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Christian Itin, and Chief Financial Officer, Rob Dolski. I'd like to remind you that during today's call, we will make statements related to our business that are forward-looking under federal securities laws and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding status of the ongoing commercial launch of AUCATZYL in the U.S. and U.K., Autolus manufacturing, sales and marketing plans for AUCATZYL, the market potential for AUCATZYL, and the status of clinical trials, development and/or regulatory timelines and market opportunities for obe-cel.
These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and reflect our views only as of today. We assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please refer to the risks identified in today's press release and in our SEC filings, both available on the investors section of our website. On slide 3, you'll see the agenda for today's call. As usual, Christian will provide an overview of our operational highlights. Rob will then discuss the financial results, and Christian will conclude with upcoming milestones and closing remarks. We'll take questions. With that, I will turn it over to Christian.
Thanks, Amanda, and welcome everyone to our first quarter update. Moving to slide number 4, we had a very good first quarter, and we see nice traction building both in the U.S. and obviously in our early launch in the U.K. as well. In Q1, we had $26.2 million in revenue booked, and we do see a very nice penetration and deepening with the positive physician experience that was highlighted at the Tandem Meetings as part of the Cell Therapy Consortium presentation. Where we had approximately 60% of our commercial patients represented in that data set, and we had discussed the data at the full year update, which was given a few weeks ago and also was further analyzed and reviewed in the context of a KOL call we did in the early part of April.
When we look into the U.K., we do see very good start in the U.K. We have more than 10 centers already active. We're going very strong in the U.K. with regards to not only center onboarding, but also start to see early patients come in and actually become treated under the NHS access program. When we look into the 2026 overall outlook, we do see that we have a very nice continued momentum. We're currently from a perspective of U.S. centers already at around 73 centers and we're increasing beyond 80 centers by the end of the year. Our full year guidance is unchanged at $120 million-$135 million.
For the first time this quarter, we did see a shift to positive gross margin, which is important because obviously this is one of the key metrics that we're looking at during the course of this year, to start to actually see that the overall commercial base and our ability to ultimately drive a proper cash flow into the company, increase over time. First time positive gross margin, and obviously a lot of that impacted by, on the one hand, an increase in volume, but also operational improvements that we made to the overall operation of the company, but in particular, the operation of the manufacturing plant that we're running. This is where we are with regards to the overview from a commercial perspective for obe-cel.
Very good dynamic, and we believe very strong momentum as we go into Q2. With that, we're going to slide number 5. I would like to start on the right-hand side and just briefly talk about the journey that we're on with regards to moving the product to a place where indeed we have a profitable ALL business. The foundation was really laid during the first year of launch, and what we had to establish during that first year of launch is consistent and high-quality product supply and services so that we have a strong foundation, we serve our patients properly, and we can generate very strong outcomes in these patients.
You've seen all of that actually presented as part of the Cell Therapy Consortium's experience, which had more than actually almost all patients that were intended to be treated actually received treatment. We also did see that that treatment actually translated into a very positive safety profile with no high-grade CRS, only 3% high-grade ICANS, and more than 90% overall response rate in the patients. A remarkable outcome in the hands of the physicians in the real-world setting. We're also starting to see that we're already starting to see branching out of the patient pool into patients that actually are older, have more comorbidities, typically tend to be considered difficult to treat.
That's one expansion that we've seen, but also an expansion into patients that have a very limited tumor burden, and with that, obviously, what we have seen in our prior studies certainly have a good opportunity to sort of get a more pronounced benefit over time. We've seen an expansion already in terms of the patient pools. That is very important because based on that behavior, as well as the good safety profile, we do expect that that forms a very strong foundation, and we see that translate actually already in the first few months in 2026.
The second stage now, as soon as we actually had established consistent high-quality product supply and services, that is actually when we switched gears and really started to drive optimization, improve efficiency, as well as at the same time, obviously, increase the volumes that actually were driving through the overall operation. With that, have an ability to actually get our overall costs down for the products. We expect at the peak ALL business to be around 65%-70% gross profit margin, which gives us a very healthy business for the ALL side of AUCATZYL. The optimization we ran through obviously also was not just an optimization in processes, but also with that, obviously, we have run through a reduction in force at the company of 13%.
We also at the same time have driven up the efficiency that we're running within the operation. You'll see that in a very simple metric. We expect to produce twice as much product this year compared to last year with overall staffing that is at or below the levels that we had last year. That gives us a very clear understanding of why indeed these gross margins are moving into the positive and will continue to improve as we go through the course of this year. Overall, as once the one-time effect of the restructuring is taken care of, you'll see that pass through, Rob will talk to that briefly, we expect for 2027 a net impact of a savings of $15 million on an annualized basis.
When we look onto the development side and leveraging the exceptional profile that we now not only are seeing in clinical trials, but see it translated also in the real-world setting, we're obviously building on that set of properties into a range of additional indications. The first one, clearly to extend the treatment from the adult population into the pediatric population. We'll have the phase II expansion of the CATULUS study ongoing. Data is expected towards the end of 2027, and we have aligned with the FDA on the protocol design and support for potential registration.
The second study, obviously that is progressing well, we expect actually data during additional data towards the end of this year is the CARLYSLE study, where we have added additional patients, and we're also will have substantial more follow-up in that patient population. I think that will give us a very good understanding of the type of benefit that indeed obe-cel can induce in indications now beyond oncology, in this case, in a refractory form of lupus, systemic lupus. The next study that is actively enrolling is the LUMINA study, which is in lupus nephritis. This is the phase II study where we have agreement with the agency to based on this study aim for a registration in refractory lupus nephritis.
The study is active in certain countries in Europe as well as the U.S. We're expecting data from this study in 2028. Finally, the study that will get us into neurological diseases is the progressive multiple sclerosis study that we're conducting, which is the BOBCAT study. This study is continuing to enroll, and we expect initial data at the end of this year and then full data during the course of next year.
When we look a bit more broadly, we also obviously will have additional data collection through the Cell Therapy Consortium, which is actually continuing to collect information from patients treated with commercial product and actually starting to look at quite a range of questions related to the performance of the product and the properties of the product with a clear view from the real-world setting. In addition, this was also part of the KOL call that I referenced before, we're seeing investigator-sponsored studies starting that actually are looking at the use of obe-cel in a frontline consolidation setting, which is ultimately aiming to explore whether indeed an abbreviated frontline treatment might be possible. We're obviously very interested to see how the product performs in those settings.
We expect our investigators to report in upcoming conferences on their studies. With that, I'm at the end of the introductory remarks, and I will hand over now to Rob for the financial results.
Thanks, Christian. Good morning or good afternoon to everyone. It's my pleasure to review our financial results for the first quarter of 2026. I'll be referring to slide 8 in the presentation. Total net product revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $26.2 million, compared with $9 million in the first quarter of 2025. This quarter reflects sales in the U.S. and our first quarter in the U.K. market, though given it is early in the launch, contribution from the U.K. was minimal. As Christian noted, we're pleased to shift to a positive gross margin during the quarter with $1.6 million, compared to losses in prior quarters in 2025. With the combination of increasing product revenue and our cost reduction initiatives that Christian mentioned that are underway, we expect the margin expansion to continue as we move forward.
Underlying that gross margin, cost of sales in the first quarter totaled GBP 24.6 million. That's compared to GBP 18 million for the same period in 2025. The increase primarily reflects costs related to higher AUCATZYL sales period over period. Our research and development expenses decreased to GBP 21.2 million for the first quarter of 2026 from GBP 26.7 million during the same period in 2025. This change was primarily due to a decrease in development activities, including clinical trial and clinical manufacturing supply costs, as well as capacity mobilization costs, mostly all related to obe-cel. Our selling, general, and administrative expenses increased to GBP 39.9 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to GBP 29.5 million in the same period of 2025.
This increase was primarily due to salaries, other employment-related costs, and professional fees supporting commercialization activities in both the U.S. and U.K. In addition, this quarter also included one-time termination-related expenses related to the operational efficiency and cost reduction initiative that we announced last month in April. Loss from operations for the 3 months ending March 31st, 2026 was GBP 59.5 million, as compared to GBP 65.2 million for the same period in 2025. Finally, net loss was GBP 71.6 million for the 3 months ending March 31st, 2026, compared to GBP 72 or GBP 70.2 million for the same period in 2025. Our cash equivalents in marketable securities at March 31st, 2026 totaled GBP 229.4 million as compared to GBP 300.7 million at December 31st, 2025.
This decrease was primarily driven by net cash used in our operating activities. As Christian noted, we are reiterating financial guidance issued in January that we expect between $120 million and $135 million in AUCATZYL net product revenue in 2026, including contribution from both the U.S. and U.K. markets. Finally, based on our current operating plans, including anticipated AUCATZYL net revenues, we expect that current and projected cash equivalents, and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund our operations into Q4 2027. I'll now hand back to Christian to wrap up with a brief outlook on expected milestones. Christian.
Thanks, Rob. When we look at towards the end of this year, we have updates from 3 of our programs. We have the longer-term follow-up from the CARLYSLE study. We have initial clinical data from the BOBCAT phase I in progressive MS, and we expect to have initial clinical data from the ALARIC phase I study. That's the AUTO8 trial in light chain amyloidosis, which we're collaborating on with UCL also by year-end of this year. Full data expected for the BOBCAT study during the course of 2027. The pediatric phase II data readout is expected for year-end 2027. The LUMINA phase II data in lupus nephritis is expected in 2028. Those are the key updates and key milestones. With that, we're opening up to questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star one one to get in the queue. One moment for our first question. It comes from Gil Blum with Needham & Company. Please proceed.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking our questions, and co-congrats on the progress. You're saying you're seeing some level of market expansion, older patients, maybe a bit, you know, patients for consolidation, that sort of thing. It didn't seem to change the guidance for this year. I'd appreciate your commentary on that, and then I have a follow-up.
Yeah. First of all, thanks a lot for joining, Gil. The dynamic we're seeing in the market is very positive. I want to see the dynamic obviously play out into the full aspect as we go through the course of the year. The guidance at this point, we believe is reasonable, and frankly no reason for us to change the guidance at this point. Also we'll keep monitoring the development, and if indeed we see a different trajectory, we obviously will update the market.
Thank you. Very helpful. As it relates to the LUMINA study, we just saw another registrational study come up again in lupus nephritis, kind of like in a similar line of therapy. Are you guys seeing any potential challenges in enrollment? I mean, it is a little crowded. Thank you.
Thanks, Gil. The population we're going after is a proper refractory population that are post the standard of care, which is based on B-cell depleting antibodies, as well as calcineurin inhibitors. That's a pool that's currently not served by the standard of care. You behold that. The trial size that we need to recruit is very limited. We're looking at a 30-patient trial. From that perspective, and also given that we're running the study both in the U.S. and outside the U.S., we believe we're in a good position to enroll the study. We're not worried about that.
Excellent. Maybe a last one on the multiple sclerosis. Can you remind us what level of data you think you may have in 2026?
The BOBCAT study, first of all, it's a dose escalation study, so we're starting at 100 million, and we have an ability to go further up. That's the basic design of the study. We expect to have initial information on the behavior obviously of the product with regards to safety, but also the cellular dynamics that we're seeing, which is important. You want to understand the ability of the product to expand in the periphery, but also look at the presence of the product in the CSF, obviously on the other side of the blood-brain barrier.
Then certainly we'll record the various types of markers that we have available here that actually monitor both either the inflammation, inflammatory state of the disease, as well as potential damage to tissue that you can monitor both with biochemical markers as well as with imaging. We'll have early data in terms of the behavior. Then I think as we look into next year, I think we start to have more data points that look at the actual disease scores and the ability, obviously, and frankly, any potential impact on disease scores going forward.
For that, you wanna have several data points and a longer observation time to make sure you're not actually monitoring potential placebo effects or other types of impact that you might have, given that part of those assessments are either physician or patient reported. Hard measures for this year, mostly on the actual behavior and safety, behavior from a pharmacodynamic perspective and pharmacokinetic markers, but also, then as we go into next year, looking into the actual disease scores themselves.
Thank you for taking our questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Simon Baker with Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please proceed.
Thanks so much for taking my questions. Two if I may please. Christian, I just wondered if you could give us a little bit more detail on the mechanics of the U.K. rollout. As I believe there are 20 CAR T centers that in principle could administer AUCATZYL. What's the cadence for rolling those out in terms of getting centers on board? How does this compare with the experience in the U.S.? Any color on that would be helpful. Then on the R&D expense, it was lower than expected in the quarter because of clinical trial activity. I just wondered if you could give us any more color on the evolution of R&D spend as the year goes on. Thanks so much.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot for joining. With regards to the U.K. rollout, we actually see a dynamic that we think is at least as quick as what we saw in the initial phase in the U.S. It might actually be quicker. One of the things that is positive about the U.K. system is that the decision whether or not a patient would actually go on a CAR T therapy or not is actually centrally, essentially made, which actually accelerates decision-making. That's actually a benefit of the way that is organized rather than individual center by center, physician by physician decision that is normal in other healthcare systems.
There are elements actually that are allowing us to probably move even a bit faster than we were able to do in the U.S., and we see very positive dynamic, very positive messaging also right from the NHS. NHS gave, you know, there were interviews held at on television in the U.K., et cetera. There was quite a lot of presentations and work that the NHS itself did, actually, frankly, increasing the awareness of the product and the opportunity for this new treatment modality for patients.
I think from an awareness perspective, as well as from a drive perspective that we see in the center base and then the initial decision-making process or the internal decision-making process base, it will be in going through a single body to take the decisions, I think is actually very helpful, and we expect a good rollout here in the U.K. With regards to R&D expense, I think I'll start and then I'll hand over to Rob. I think what's important on the R&D expense, obviously there is some changes as we see our activity with regards to clinical trials. There, you know, as you transition from one trial phase to another trial phase, that usually, you know, slows down a little bit the involvement in that process. There can be some fluctuations.
Also if we look back into last year, obviously there was still quite a lot of work that was ongoing related to the longer term follow-up of the FELIX study. That actually, that work will be reduced over time as we're sort of obviously ramping up some of the other clinical activities. There are quite, you know, important trade-offs there that we have on actual clinical trial activity. The other area is really the mobilization of additional capacity at The Nucleus, which we're obviously kinda taking on as we're sort of ramping now the demand in the U.S. We also had some activity still ongoing during the course of last year. Those activities will substantially be reduced or are pretty much coming to a stop.
We actually have now an ability to obviously we'll have it, certain of those activities which are also R&D-related costs, as you mobilize the activity, will start to obviously be reduced, while at the same time we start increasing obviously our clinical trial costs. We expect all in all that there's gonna be very helpful trade-offs and also will keep overall that R&D expense at a fairly steady level. Rob, do you want to add anything?
I mean, the only additional thing I can add, Simon, I think Christian covered it really well. Another example I'd throw out there certainly was our pediatric study where it was at a stage where we had that kind of first cohort enrolled and was still active at sites. That was part of the data presentation that happened at the end of last year. In terms of getting this next wave up and going, where we're more in kind of a valley, and now we're in the enrollment for the expansion cohort. Certainly, as we start treating more patients, both in the clinical programs, even on some of the investigator sponsored trials that we have out there that Christian's mentioned, you will see more clinical supply-related costs that will come in.
This is going to kind of move, you know, kind of up and down a little bit. We are not projecting any significant add of infrastructure, et cetera, on the R&D side.
Great. Very helpful. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That comes from Salim Syed with Mizuho. Please proceed.
Great. Good morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter. Just one for us on the data that we're expecting this year, Christian, Rob. It sounds like for the MS, the more important data set's gonna be coming in 2027. I don't know if you sort of interpret the same way for ALARIC. I'm just trying to balance how important do you guys deem these data sets coming at year-end? Are we expected to get any sort of bogey or how you guys are deeming what is a successful outcome on these year-end measures? I'm just trying to balance that with just the cash runway here before Q 2027. Thank you.
Yeah. When we look at the nature of the MS study, obviously we're collecting data points on disease score. In order to actually get, I think, a good sense of the trajectory of the disease score, you need to have a certain amount of observation period. We obviously collect the data. We'll have an initial view on that. To actually make a strong statement about the trajectory that you'll see after, you know, a few months is probably not sufficient. I know there's a temptation to do that, and there's certainly, we see that sometimes in the market that that's being done.
We believe with those types of data points, you actually want to have a little further out, a view, and with that, I think get more stable data. On the ALARIC study, I think what we do have is, certainly initial good understanding of the level of activity we have in this disease setting. We haven't actually reported on that before. I think that should give us a good feel for the level of activity that we're seeing, and the impact we're seeing in these patients. I think that's certainly gonna be a data point that we're obviously, I think will be very helpful and will certainly from a read-out perspective, I think will certainly be interpretable, in a clear way.
The other aspect I think is also getting back to the MS program. I think one of the things to sort of be clear about is that the importance here is on the one hand, in the short for the data point at the end of the year, is the ability to demonstrate that indeed the product actually can be, you know, give us a safe product profile in these patients, which I think is very important for these patients. Also then actually have be able to actually show that indeed the product is active in the, in the CSF and with that in the central nervous system.
I think that actually is a key piece of the information and really goes to the foundation of the rationale for using the cell-based product because that allows us to actually get across the blood-brain barrier and with that have an ability for activity. Just as a reminder for some of you, if you haven't actually been able to listen to the KOL call, Lori Muffly did present one of her patients that had explosive ALL or filled up bone marrow, the disease strongly and frankly intruding into the brain and into the CSF. Frankly, putting pressure onto the spine directly leading to the patient becoming paraplegic.
What she described is that she treated the patient with obe-cel, which she thought was the only treatment she could give the patient that would be actually safe enough. What she was seeing is that the patient, within 28 days, had actually the leukemia taken care of MRD negative in the periphery, but also obviously clearance in the CNS and the patient actually recovered mobility and control over her body. That tells you a lot about the ability of the product to cross the blood-brain barrier, to be very active and remove CD19 positive cells, in this case, obviously leukemic cells in the brain, to a point where indeed there is massive improvement that could be seen in the patient.
That's really at the heart of the feature, which is unique to this type of a therapy, and that's really what we're building on for the BOBCAT study in progressive MS.
Okay. Got it. Thanks, Christian.
One moment for our next question. It comes from the line of James Shin with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning, team. Thank you for the question. I appreciate obe-cel achieving positive gross margins this quarter. Intending obe-cel's top line growth and, you know, with the risk in place, could we see Autolus becoming profitable on a company level basis by, say, late 2027? Second question, between Besponsa and Blincyto, is Blincyto the main bridge before patients receive obe-cel? Does the bridging then duration tend to align with obe-cel's manufacturing turnaround time? Thank you.
Thanks, James. Very good question. The first related to kind of the trajectory for the ALL business. What we're projecting for the ALL business is that we're going to cross the line to profitability in the ALL business in 2028. Whether or not the company will actually be profitable at that point also depends on the reinvestment rate that we'll have in the upcoming one and a half years towards that time point. That's going to be the key driver, whether or not we're going to be, you know, can be profitable as a company or not by that time point. As an ALL business, we expect to cross that line in 2028.
With regards to the bridging therapies that are employed for obe-cel, typically you would use for bridging either chemotherapy or inotuzumab or Besponsa. You would not use Blincyto. The reason for Blincyto is this is when a treatment, when you start it should go for, it's basically a continuous IV infusion for four weeks, which is actually longer than the manufacturing turnaround time for these patients, and that actually wouldn't make sense. We don't actually see the use of Blincyto for bridging in with our product. It's mostly driven by chemotherapy and/or inotuzumab.
We continue to the next question. It comes from Matthew Phipps with William Blair. Please proceed.
Thanks for taking my questions. I guess could you maybe characterize a little bit of the growth that you've seen this quarter? Is it from greater utilization at current centers? You know, you mentioned expansion to older patients. Or is it mainly expansion into new centers? I guess what percent of the market do you think you'll have covered when you reach the 80 centers by the end of this year? Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. When we look at the growth, we see that actually, given that we already have 73 centers on, and when you compare to beginning of the year, we were at about 65. The majority obviously comes from the centers that were already active. That's where you see the repeat use and you see that build up. The new centers obviously gradually build on, but their initial activity is gonna be limited. There's gonna be 1 or 2 patients, initial experience gained, that eventually translates further. We see a lot of good positive momentum out of the centers.
One of the metrics we're looking at is also not just the centers themselves, because when you look into the centers, what you do see initially is that typically it's a small number of physicians that might actually use product. What you really wanna do is you want to see actually the group of physicians using the product increase per center. One of the metrics we're looking at is obviously the physicians that are actually using the product, and we actually see very nice progression in terms of the numbers of physicians using the product and have actually dosed a patient. We kinda track that as one of the key metrics, and you clearly see that dynamic. For the most part, that expansion actually is within the centers we're already active in, and we're starting to see broader adoption.
That's really how ultimately you will build market share. It's the use of the product by most of the physicians at each given center across the range of the indication of the label. That gives you really the ability to grow that market share. Overall, we do believe we see very good dynamic in terms of increasing the market share, obviously, as we're going forward. Based on just our guidance, you would expect that we would have a substantial increase in the overall market share that we're projecting obviously for 2026, and that's the guidance we have reiterated.
One moment for our next question, please. It comes from Emily Bodnar with H.C. Wainwright. Please proceed.
Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe a follow-up from the prior question. Can you kind of comment on what contribution U.K. revenue had on growth in the first quarter and how you're kind of expecting that to play out for the remainder of 2026? Maybe on the data update for SLE and LN later this year, if you can kind of talk about what level of durability you're hoping to see in the updated data, and also response rates for the 100 million dose. Thanks.
All right. Thanks a lot, Emily. Thanks for joining. For the U.K. sales, given that the U.K. is obviously a fraction of the size of the U.S., we decided not to actually break out U.K. sales numbers. Certainly initially in the launch because it frankly doesn't make much sense. It is too early in the process. We expect to break it out likely towards the end of the year. For the first quarter, that doesn't actually make much sense at this point because obviously a lot of the patients would roll in. You start to produce initial products, then you start to actually see the momentum translated into the actual sales numbers.
With regards to the LN update, obviously we have patients that will have about 12 months or more follow-up in terms of the initial cohort. I think that is going to be very meaningful because it tells us a lot about not just the initial safety and the initial reset, but then also how the B cell compartment sort of reconstitutes over time. With that then also, the ability to see sustained response in these patients going forward, which is one of the key elements and metrics that we're looking at. Obviously for the other patients, which include higher dose cohort, as well as adolescent patients, we're obviously going to have a limited follow-up.
That's going to be mostly around the initial response, the safety, the initial response, and you know, initial kind of recovery of the B cell compartment. Obviously, that will have a limited follow-up compared to what we will have for the first cohort, where we're going to be certainly beyond the year of follow-up.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Emily.
One moment for our next question. That comes from Jacob Mekhael with KBC Securities. Please proceed.
Hi there, thanks for taking my questions. I have a few, if I may. First of all, just on the gross margin, you mentioned in one of the slides earlier that you expect it to be 65%-70% at peak. Curious, do you plan to provide peak sales guidance at some point in the future? When would be the right time to do that in your view? That's the first one. Maybe I have a follow-up on the, on your agreement with Cellares Corp for the manufacturing. Is there a timeline by which you need to have a formal agreement in order to incorporate that into the new manufacturing process for the clinical program in autoimmune?
All right. Well, first, thanks for joining, Jacob. First, with regards to the gross margin reference and peak sales, I think what we have been pointing out with regards to the overall opportunity in the relapsed refractory setting in the U.S. is that we have approximately 1,600-1,800 patients. We have seen certainly with other agents before that you can get with a good profile up to about 60% penetration, which we expect, or market share, which we expect kind of the upper end of the range is in the relapsed refractory setting. That's kind of where we are and I think where we sort of see the opportunity.
I think to guide towards, you know, a more formal peak sales, I think that's premature at this point in time. I think it gives you a good understanding of kind of the overall size of the market and the overall opportunity that we're sort of identifying for the product. With regards to the Cellares timing, we're in the midst of a feasibility study. We want to understand where the product actually produced on that technology platform versus the platform we're using at The Nucleus today, how the products compare. That's a key analysis that we're running. That's what we're really going to be focusing on this year. If that data turns out positive, that's when I think the timing, the time point to actually take the next steps.
In terms of being in time, we believe that the key area where I think that technology I think could be attractive to us is if we're sort of getting to a step change in the need for product. We believe that that step change certainly could come from an indication like progressive MS. I think that's sort of where we're looking to sort of actually work through and make sure that we have an option there that would allow us to actually scale production in a, in a, in a reasonable and economical way as well. That's sort of where the frankly, the elements that are being connected.
For this year, it's really around making sure we get the clear data from the feasibility, and our understanding that, whether this, the quality of the product we're getting actually is comparable.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Roger Song with Jefferies. Please proceed.
Hi. Good morning. This is Fiona on for Roger. Thanks for taking our questions. Just a couple from us. On the AUCATZYL revenue, how should we think about the near term and long term growth driver and any active measures you're taking to further deepen the penetration in the U.S. versus ex-U.S. dynamics? Just another one. Understanding that you're gonna switch to a positive gross margin from this quarter, do you see any further optimization needed moving forward? Do you want to see the impact of the cost reduction play out? Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Fiona. First on with regards to the revenue drivers, clearly there's two key elements here. There's getting to, you know, a large percentage of the patients that you or the market you can cover in terms of access, patient access to centers. We believe that we're in this 80 plus center range. We're getting to, certainly in the range of 80% of the patients that we can actually cover from that perspective, which I also believe is an add-on answer to what Matt was asking as well before.
What really drives the ability for the drive the market share up, and this is in any jurisdiction that you're active in, is really getting the physicians, at a given center to use the product consistently, gain experience and gain confidence. With that, starting to use the product in the first place for typically, a limited number of patients, which is sort of typically patients they think they cannot serve with the standard of care that they have experience with. Gain experience with the product. Then actually, start to apply the product much more widely across the full range of the label. We've seen that play out actually during clinical trials, we see it play out also now in the, in the, in the marketplace as well.
That is really what drives ultimate the market share, is the conviction of the physicians that this product, actually allows you to treat a wide range of patients. Again, Lori Muffly made these types of comments actually also at the call that we had organized. What she was talking about is the ability to actually have an option with a CAR T that irrespective of modality, actually gives you a safe way of treating patients and actually allows her to treat patients she would not have even considered treating before. That was actually not a differentiation between CAR T products, but across the range of product options and modalities that she has available.
That's kind of an expression of that level of confidence, and I think that is where we see, I think the biggest growth is for physicians to get to that place. That's also where the ultimate decision-making resides is obviously with the physician. The patient receives the product once. It's a one-time experience for the patient. It's a repeat experience for the physicians, and that's what's really, what's your foundation and what's really driving this. This is true whether this is in the U.S. or it's in the U.K. or elsewhere. With regards to the opportunity to sort of expand beyond the U.S., obviously, we're active in the U.K. at this point. We continue conversations in Europe, and we're navigating, market access and MSN topics in Europe, and obviously, we need to make sure we get to reasonable places there.
At this point, we're not guiding for European sales. We're obviously approved. We continue those conversations, and we'll certainly, once we actually are, you know, get through market access in first European countries, we'll obviously inform everyone on that. This is an ongoing process, and they're certainly somewhat delicate also with the policy changes that we see across the board that we need to take into account.
Very helpful. Thank you.
With regards to optimization. The final question I think you had was on optimization. Actually, optimization, certainly from a manufacturing process, is a continuous process. It's not just a one-off. We made some very significant changes in our operating model that are now implemented, and we continue to improve as we go through literally every step along the way of the manufacturing process. What we're really aiming for is to make sure that the hours of work that go in to produce every single product can be minimized. It's really a drive to minimize the work spent per product. At the same time, obviously, we want to reduce the overall contribution from the fixed cost, and that particular aspect is driven by the volume of products you run through the facility.
Those are the two key metrics that actually are driving ultimately your cost down per product. One is the total volume, and with that, the reduction of the fixed cost allocation and then also a reduction of a reduced number of work hours per product. That's really what we're driving at, and we'll see a very significant steady impact as we go over the upcoming probably two years.
Thank you, Christian.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our last question comes from Shyam Kotadia with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Thank you for taking my question. Just 2 from my end. On the gross margin that reached positive this quarter, how should we think about that cadence for the rest of this year? Should we expect a steady improvement? What is your target gross margin, I guess, for full year 2026? Also on that peak margin you mentioned, when are you expecting to reach that? That's the first one on gross margin. Then the second one on multiple sclerosis. I know it's early, but just wanted to see if you guys could provide any color on your commercialization plan there. Are you planning to go at this yourself, or would you look to a partner or in-license for this indication? Thank you.
Thank you very much. With regards to the gross margin, we expect to actually see continuous improvement of the gross margin as we go through the course of this year. We obviously have implemented significant improvements in the operating model in the first few months this year. They will start to actually have impact in terms of the cost as we get through the remainder of the year. I think we'll see sort of an increased impact over time. At the same time, we'll see obviously, and we expect an increase in terms of the volume of product that we're running through the facility as well. Those two parameters will actually be supportive to really see a continuous improvement of the gross margin.
We haven't given guidance on where we expect to be by the end of this year. We're obviously It's a metric that we continuously will report, and I think you'll start to get a good understanding and feel for the dynamic as we go through the next few quarters. That's the first part of the question. The second is, when do we expect peak typically to get through to peak sales in indications like ALL, that's probably taken between 4 and 5 years.
The main impact that you will see from a gross margin perspective is likely gonna be somewhat earlier because if you get to a certain level of volume of product you run through the facility, the amount of improvement you get on the fixed cost contribution obviously becomes limited. You're running an asymptotic line. Obviously, the big gains that we expect on productivity and with that reduction of labor cost, is expected to happen actually during the course of this year. Then there may individual elements where we might actually introduce particular improvements on technology that can actually then lead again to a step change.
Those will not be, those obviously will take time and will not be in a straight line, but obviously will then give us sort of individual discrete steps that we expect to see. For the time being, I think most of it is really just the actual improvement on the work hours and the impact of the changes in the operating model, which will likely have the single biggest contribution that will be made through that. There are a number of much smaller initiatives that over time will add to that. With regards to the MS commercialization question. What we're seeing in MS is obviously a population of patients. First of all, it's a much larger population.
They're much more distributed. They're also, it's also a patient group that's extremely motivated, and we see that also even in the conduct of the clinical study. We see even a different dynamic, even to acute leukemia, where you know this is a disease that can actually and quite likely may kill you. There's just still actually a higher degree, I think of in, I think of dynamic that we're seeing with MS patients. That is sort of one side of the equation. There's the sheer volume question in terms of if you have some product that actually impacts these patients, it's a very substantial patient population.
From that perspective, it does make sense to consider, certainly a commercial approach where you would operate in collaboration with a partner, and that is certainly one of the areas that we are exploring.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session for today.
Very good.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, everybody, and have a great Q2. We're looking forward to keeping you updated at the various conferences during the quarter. Thank you.
Thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program, and you may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-05Autolus Therapeutics to Report First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on May 14, 2026
GlobeNewswire
Autolus Therapeutics to Report First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on May 14, 2026
LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., May 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announced that the Company will release its first quarter 2026 financial results and operational highlights before open of U.S. markets on Thursday, May 14, 2026. Management will host a conference call and webcast at 8:30am EDT / 1:30pm BST to discuss the company’s financial results and provide a general business update. Conference call participants should pre-register using this link to receive the dial-in numbers and a personal PIN, which are required to access the conference call. A simultaneous audio webcast and replay will be accessible on the events section of Autolus’ website. About Autolus Therapeutics plc Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-03-27Autolus Therapeutics Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Business Updates
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Autolus Therapeutics Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results and Business Updates
AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel) net product revenue of $23.3 million* for the fourth quarter of 2025 and $74.3 million* for the full year of 2025 AUCATZYL® UK launch underway following successful National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluation Autolus continues to expect full year 2026 AUCATZYL® net product revenue of $120 million to $135 million and shift to positive gross margin to occur in 2026 Independent real-world AUCATZYL® data from ROCCA consortium confirm high level of clinical activity with favorable safety profile Pivotal Phase 2 clinical trials with obe-cel in lupus nephritis and pediatric ALL enrolling; initial clinical data from BOBCAT Phase 1 trial in progressive MS anticipated by year-end 2026 Conference call to be held today at 08:30 am EDT/12:30 pm GMT: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., March 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announces its operational and financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025. “Autolus had a strong first year of launch of AUCATZYL in the US building a market leading position in adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-ALL and demonstrating strong commercial execution, including reliable, high-quality product delivery with consistent turn-around time. Parallel to the launch, the ROCCA consortium collected real world data from approximately 60% of the commercial patients treated with AUCATZYL. Recently reported data confirm a high level of clinical activity without inducing high grade CRS and only 3% of patients experiencing high grade ICANS. We expect this positive customer experience will be a key driver for the future growth of AUCATZYL,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. Dr. Itin continued, “Our focus in 2026 will be on driving adoption of AUCATZYL in the US, launching in the UK and expanding the utility of obe-cel in additional indications while leveraging our established commercial and manufacturing capabilities. Based on regulatory feedback we are executing two compact pivotal studies: CATULUS in pediatric r/r B-ALL and LUMINA in severe lupus nephritis patients…Read full documentShow less
AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel) net product revenue of $23.3 million* for the fourth quarter of 2025 and $74.3 million* for the full year of 2025 AUCATZYL® UK launch underway following successful National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluation Autolus continues to expect full year 2026 AUCATZYL® net product revenue of $120 million to $135 million and shift to positive gross margin to occur in 2026 Independent real-world AUCATZYL® data from ROCCA consortium confirm high level of clinical activity with favorable safety profile Pivotal Phase 2 clinical trials with obe-cel in lupus nephritis and pediatric ALL enrolling; initial clinical data from BOBCAT Phase 1 trial in progressive MS anticipated by year-end 2026 Conference call to be held today at 08:30 am EDT/12:30 pm GMT: conference call participants should pre-register using the link at the bottom of this press release LONDON and GAITHERSBURG, Md., March 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announces its operational and financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025. “Autolus had a strong first year of launch of AUCATZYL in the US building a market leading position in adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-ALL and demonstrating strong commercial execution, including reliable, high-quality product delivery with consistent turn-around time. Parallel to the launch, the ROCCA consortium collected real world data from approximately 60% of the commercial patients treated with AUCATZYL. Recently reported data confirm a high level of clinical activity without inducing high grade CRS and only 3% of patients experiencing high grade ICANS. We expect this positive customer experience will be a key driver for the future growth of AUCATZYL,” said Dr. Christian Itin, Chief Executive Officer of Autolus. Dr. Itin continued, “Our focus in 2026 will be on driving adoption of AUCATZYL in the US, launching in the UK and expanding the utility of obe-cel in additional indications while leveraging our established commercial and manufacturing capabilities. Based on regulatory feedback we are executing two compact pivotal studies: CATULUS in pediatric r/r B-ALL and LUMINA in severe lupus nephritis patients. In addition, we are exploring the utility of obe-cel in progressive MS patients in the Phase 1 BOBCAT study. Clinical data updates are planned for long-term follow up of the Phase 1 CARLYSLE data in severe SLE patients, initial clinical experience in light chain amyloidosis from the ALARIC study with AUTO8 and initial data from the BOBCAT study by the end of 2026.” Product and Pipeline Updates: AUCATZYL® Launch Autolus reported net product revenue of $23.3 million* for the three months ended December 31, 2025, and $74.3 million* for the year ended December 31, 2025, driven by U.S. sales. Following a successful National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluation, AUCATZYL launched in the UK in January 2026 and is now available under routine commissioning. Data from the ROCCA (Real-World Outcomes Collaborative for CAR T in Adult ALL) consortium database evaluating patient characteristics, toxicity and response after real-world administration of AUCATZYL was presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in December 2025 and the TANDEM meeting in February 2026. Real-world data show consistency in both safety and efficacy compared to the FELIX clinical trial that was the basis for regulatory approvals. The ROCCA Consortium registry covers approximately 60% of U.S. commercial patients at a data cutoff of January 5, 2026. Obe-cel data in pediatric r/r B-ALL Preliminary data from the CATULUS Phase 1 trial of obe-cel in pediatric relapsed or refractory (r/r) B-ALL patients were presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in December 2025. Obe-cel demonstrated high remission rates in pediatric patients with high-risk r/r B-ALL with overall response rate (ORR) of 95.5%. Low rates of high-grade cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) were observed, consistent with obe-cel’s adult safety profile. The Phase 2 portion of the trial is underway and Autolus expects to report data at the end of 2027. In October 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regenerative medicine advanced therapy (RMAT) designation to obe-cel for the treatment of pediatric patients with r/r B-ALL. The RMAT designation is a program created under the 21st Century Cures Act to accelerate development and regulatory review of regenerative medicine therapies, including cell therapies, intended to treat serious or life-threatening diseases. Obe-cel in lupus nephritis Data from the ongoing Phase 1 CARLYSLE trial in patients with severe refractory systemic lupus erythematosus (srSLE) were reported at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2025 and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. All patients show deep B-cell depletion after infusion, suggesting an immune reset. No ICANS or high-grade CRS were observed in the nine patients evaluable for safety. Data support progressing obe-cel as a treatment for LN and 50 million cells was selected as the recommended Phase 2 dose. Autolus has previously aligned with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on a Phase 2 trial design in LN and potential registrational path to approval. The LUMINA trial is now enrolling and the Company expects to report data in 2028. Obe-cel in progressive multiple sclerosis Autolus has advanced obe-cel into initial clinical development to explore treatment in progressive MS. The first patient in the BOBCAT trial was dosed in October 2025. The Phase 1 trial, expected to include up to 18 adult patients, will determine the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of obe-cel in participants with refractory progressive forms of MS. The Company expects to report initial data from the trial at the end of 2026 and full data in 2027. AUTO8 in AL-Amyloidosis The first patient was dosed in the Phase 1 ALARIC trial evaluating AUTO8 in light-chain amyloidosis and initial data is expected to be reported at the end of 2026. Q4 2025 Operational Updates: In the fourth quarter of 2025, Autolus initiated an overall manufacturing life cycle plan to facilitate additional cost reductions and gross margin improvements as the Company plans to expand obe-cel into new indications and pursue larger market opportunities. The initiatives are focused on 1) optimizing the Company’s current manufacturing operating model; 2) enhancing automation opportunities for the Company’s existing manufacturing process; and 3) developing a next-generation manufacturing platform with a step change in the cost and capacity profile. The Company plans to provide a detailed update on these plans in mid-2026. Outlook: For 2026, the Company continues to project AUCATZYL net product revenue of between $120 million to $135 million. Increasing patient numbers in 2026 are expected to improve manufacturing plant utilization and together with operational efficiencies, Autolus expects a shift to positive gross margin in 2026. Based on current operating plans, including anticipated AUCATZYL® net revenues, Autolus expects that its current and projected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund the Company’s operations into Q4 2027. Summary of Anticipated News Flow: ALL: acute lymphoblastic leukemia SLE: systemic lupus erythematosus LN: lupus nephritis MS: multiple sclerosis ALA: light-chain amyloidosis Virtual Investor Event: Spotlight on Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Program April 8, 2026 1:00pm EDT / 6:00pm BST A live webcast of the event will be available on the investor relations section of the Autolus website: https://www.autolus.com/investor-relations-media/events/ Financial Results for the Quarter Ended December 31, 2025 Product revenue, net for the three months ended December 31, 2025, was $23.3 million*. Cost of sales increased from $11.4 million to $25.3 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. This increase was primarily due to product sales in Q4 2025 and to the timing of commercial manufacturing activity expenses upon FDA approval of AUCATZYL in November 2024. Additionally, cost of sales in Q4 2025 includes cancelled orders in the period, patient access program product, inventory reserves and write-offs and third-party royalties for certain technology licenses. Research and development expenses increased to $35.6 million from $30.8 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. This change was primarily due to an increase in research and development activities including clinical trial costs and a reduction in the UK R&D tax credit, partially offset by commercial manufacturing-related employee and infrastructure costs shifting to cost of sales and inventory. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $35.8 million from $33.7 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. This increase was primarily due to salaries and other employment-related costs, driven by increased headcount supporting commercialization activities. Loss from operations for the three months ended December 31, 2025, was $72.5 million, as compared to $75.9 million for the same period in 2024. Net loss was $90.3 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to $27.6 million for the same period in 2024. Basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share for the three months ended December 31, 2025, totaled $(0.34), compared to basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share of $(0.10) for the same period in 2024. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at December 31, 2025, totaled $300.7 million, as compared to $588.0 million at December 31, 2024. The decrease was primarily driven by net cash used in operating activities and impacted by a delayed cash receipt of approximately $18.6 million in the Company's 2023 R&D tax credit expected from the UK HMRC. *Net product revenue reflects year-end refinement of revenue recognition timing upon second dose administration only. Conference Call Management will host a conference call and webcast today at 8:30am EDT/12:30pm GMT to discuss the company’s financial results. Conference call participants should pre-register using this link to receive the dial-in numbers and a personal PIN, which are required to access the conference call. A simultaneous audio webcast and replay will be accessible on the events section of Autolus’ website at https://www.autolus.com/investor-relations-media/events/. About Autolus Therapeutics plc Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL) is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing, manufacturing and delivering next-generation T cell therapies and candidates for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, Autolus is engineering precisely targeted and controlled T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize target cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a marketed therapy, AUCATZYL®, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies, solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com. About AUCATZYL® (obecabtagene autoleucel; obe-cel) AUCATZYL is a B-lymphocyte antigen CD19 (CD19) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy designed to overcome the limitations in clinical activity and safety compared to current CD19 CAR T cell therapies. AUCATZYL is designed with a fast target binding off-rate to minimize excessive activation of the programmed T cells. AUCATZYL was approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia on November 8, 2024, and was granted conditional marketing authorization by MHRA in the UK and EMA in the EU in 2025. INDICATION AUCATZYL® is a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days following the first infusion (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). The most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%), and hypoxia (19%). Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. CRS was reported in 75% (75/100) of patients including Grade 3 CRS in 3% of patients. The median time to onset of CRS was 8 days (range: 1 to 23 days) with a median duration of 5 days (range: 1 to 21 days). Sixty-eight percent of patients (51/75) experienced CRS after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 10 days). Among patients with CRS, the most common manifestations of CRS included fever (100%), hypotension (35%) and hypoxia (19%). The primary treatment for CRS was tocilizumab (73%; 55/75), with patients also receiving corticosteroids (21%; 16/75). Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage CRS. During and following treatment with AUCATZYL, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of CRS daily for at least 7 days following each infusion. Continue to monitor patients for CRS for at least 2 weeks following each infusion with AUCATZYL. Counsel patients to seek immediate medical attention should signs or symptoms of CRS occur at any time. At the first sign of CRS, immediately evaluate the patient for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Neurologic Toxicities Neurologic toxicities including Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS), which were fatal or life-threatening, occurred following treatment with AUCATZYL. Neurologic toxicities were reported in 64% (64/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 12% of patients. The median time to onset of neurologic toxicities was 10 days (range: 1 to 246 days) with a median duration of 13 days (range: 1 to 904 days). Fifty-five percent of patients (35/64) experienced neurologic toxicities after the first infusion but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL with a median time to onset of 6 days (range: 1 to 11 days). Among patients with neurologic toxicities, the most common symptoms (> 5%) included ICANS (38%), headache (34%), encephalopathy (33%), dizziness (22%), tremor (13%), anxiety (9%), insomnia (9%), and delirium (8%). Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS) ICANS events occurred in 24% (24/100) of patients, including Grade ≥ 3 in 7% (7/100) of patients. Of the 24 patients who experienced ICANS, 33% (8/24) experienced an onset after the first infusion, but prior to the second infusion of AUCATZYL. The median time to onset for ICANS events after the first infusion was 8 days (range: 1 to 10 days) and 6.5 days (range: 2 to 22 days) after the second infusion, with a median duration of 8.5 days (range: 1 to 53 days). Eighty-eight percent (21/24) of patients received treatment for ICANS. All treated patients received high-dose corticosteroids and 42% (10/24) of patients received anti-epileptics prophylactically. Prior to administering AUCATZYL, ensure that healthcare providers have immediate access to medications and resuscitative equipment to manage ICANS. During and following AUCATZYL administration, closely monitor patients for signs and symptoms of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS. Following treatment with AUCATZYL, monitor patients daily for at least 7 days. Continue to monitor patients for at least 2 weeks following treatment with AUCATZYL. Avoid driving for at least 2 weeks after each infusion. Counsel patients to seek medical attention should signs or symptoms of neurologic toxicity/ ICANS occur. At the first sign of Neurologic Toxicity/ICANS, immediately evaluate patients for hospitalization and institute treatment with supportive care based on severity and consider further management per current practice guidelines. Prolonged Cytopenias Patients may exhibit cytopenias including anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia for several weeks after treatment with lymphodepleting chemotherapy and AUCATZYL. In patients who were responders to AUCATZYL, Grade ≥ 3 cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 30 following AUCATZYL infusion were observed in 71% (29/41) of patients and included neutropenia (66%, 27/41) and thrombocytopenia (54%, 22/41). Grade 3 or higher cytopenias that persisted beyond Day 60 following AUCATZYL infusion was observed in 27% (11/41) of patients and included neutropenia (17%, 7/41) and thrombocytopenia (15%, 6/41). Monitor blood counts after AUCATZYL infusion. Infections Severe, including life-threatening and fatal infections occurred in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Non-COVID-19 infections of all grades occurred in 67% (67/100) of patients. Grade 3 or higher non-COVID-19 infections occurred in 41% (41/100) of patients. AUCATZYL should not be administered to patients with clinically significant active systemic infections. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infection before and after AUCATZYL infusion and treat appropriately. Administer prophylactic antimicrobials according to local guidelines. Grade 3 or higher febrile neutropenia was observed in 26% (26/100) of patients after AUCATZYL infusion and may be concurrent with CRS. In the event of febrile neutropenia, evaluate for infection and manage with broad-spectrum antibiotics, fluids, and other supportive care as medically indicated. Viral reactivation, potentially severe or life-threatening, can occur in patients treated with drugs directed against B cells. There is no experience with manufacturing AUCATZYL for patients with a positive test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or with active hepatitis B virus (HBV) or active hepatitis C virus (HCV). Perform screening for HBV, HCV and HIV in accordance with clinical guidelines before collection of cells for manufacturing. Hypogammaglobulinemia Hypogammaglobulinemia and B-cell aplasia can occur in patients after AUCATZYL infusion. Hypogammaglobulinemia was reported in 10% (10/100) of patients treated with AUCATZYL including Grade 3 events in 2 patients (2%). Immunoglobulin levels should be monitored after treatment with AUCATZYL and managed per institutional guidelines including infection precautions, antibiotic or antiviral prophylaxis, and immunoglobulin replacement. The safety of immunization with live viral vaccines during or following treatment with AUCATZYL has not been studied. Vaccination with live viral vaccines is not recommended for at least 6 weeks prior to the start of lymphodepleting chemotherapy treatment, during AUCATZYL treatment, and until immune recovery following treatment with AUCATZYL. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis/Macrophage Activation Syndrome (HLH/MAS) HLH/MAS including fatal and life-threatening reactions occurred after treatment with AUCATZYL. HLH/MAS was reported in 2% (2/100) of patients and included Grade 3 and Grade 4 events with a time of onset at Day 22 and Day 41, respectively. One patient experienced a concurrent ICANS events after AUCATZYL infusion and died due to sepsis with ongoing HLH/MAS that had not resolved. Administer treatment for HLH/MAS according to institutional standards. Hypersensitivity Reactions Serious hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, may occur due to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an excipient used in AUCATZYL. Observe patients for hypersensitivity reactions during and after AUCATZYL infusion. Secondary Malignancies Patients treated with AUCATZYL may develop secondary malignancies. T cell malignancies have occurred following treatment of hematologic malignancies with BCMA- and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapies. Mature T cell malignancies, including CAR-positive tumors, may present as soon as weeks following infusion, and may include fatal outcomes. Monitor lifelong for secondary malignancies. In the event that a secondary malignancy occurs, contact Autolus at 1-855-288-5227 for reporting and to obtain instructions on the collection of patient samples for testing. Adverse Reactions The safety of AUCATZYL was evaluated in the FELIX study in which 100 patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) received AUCATZYL at a median dose of 410 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells (range: 10 to 480 × 106 CD19 CAR-positive viable T cells with 90% of patients receiving the recommended dose of 410 × 106 +/- 25%). The most common serious adverse reactions of any Grade (incidence ≥ 2%) included infections-pathogen unspecified, febrile neutropenia, ICANS, CRS, fever, bacterial infectious disorders, encephalopathy, fungal infections, hemorrhage, respiratory failure, hypotension, ascites, HLH/MAS, thrombosis and hypoxia. Nine patients (9%) experienced fatal adverse reactions which included infections (sepsis, pneumonia, peritonitis), ascites, pulmonary embolism, acute respiratory distress syndrome, HLH/MAS and ICANS. Of the 9 patients, five patients who died from infections had pre-existing and ongoing neutropenia prior to receiving bridging therapy, lymphodepletion chemotherapy treatment and/or AUCATZYL. Please see full Prescribing Information, including BOXED WARNING and Medication Guide. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as "may," "will," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," and "believes." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Autolus’ future expectations, plans and prospects, including guidance on 2026 AUCATZYL net product revenue and gross margin; Autolus’ anticipated cash runway; the therapeutic potential and expected clinical benefits of AUCATZYL (obe-cel; obecabtagene autoleucel) for adult patients with r/r B-ALL and obe-cel in additional indications including LN and progressive MS; Autolus’ ability to generate revenues from AUCATZYL; Autolus’ ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for obe-cel for adult r/r B-ALL in additional territories and the timing thereof; expectations regarding the commercialization, marketing and manufacturing of AUCATZYL for adult r/r B-ALL, including expanding into additional territories and the related timing of reaching patients in such territories; the development of obe-cel in autoimmune indications and of additional product candidates, including statements regarding the initiation, timing, progress and the results of clinical studies or trials and related preparatory work; the period during which the results of clinical studies or trials will become available; Autolus’ plans to expand, develop and enhance its manufacturing activities; and Autolus’ pursuit of expanded market access across Europe. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks identified in the section titled "Risk Factors" in Autolus' Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), on March 20, 2025 and its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Autolus' subsequent filings with the SEC. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Autolus undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing Autolus’ views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Contact: Amanda Cray +1 617-967-0207 [email protected]
TranscriptFY2025 Q42026-03-27FY2025 Q4 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 44 paragraphs
FY2025 Q4 earnings call transcript
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Autolus Fourth Quarter 2025 and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Amanda Cray, Executive Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Kevin. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. With me are Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Christian Itin; and Chief Financial Officer, Rob Dolski. On Slide 2, I'd like to remind you that during today's call, we will make statements related to our business that are forward-looking under federal securities laws and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding status of the ongoing commercial launch of AUCATZYL in the U.S. and U.K., Autolus manufacturing, sales and marketing plans for AUCATZYL, the market potential for AUCATZYL and the status of clinical trials, development and/or regulatory time lines and market opportunities for obe-cel and our other product candidates. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and reflect our views only as of today. We assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please refer to the risks identified in today's press release and in our SEC filings, both available on the Investors section of our website. On Slide 3, you'll see the agenda for today's call. As usual, Christian will provide an overview of our operational highlights. Rob will then discuss the financial results, and Christian will conclude with upcoming milestones and closing remarks. We'll then take questions. With that, I'll turn it over to Christian.
Thank you, Amanda, and welcome, everyone, to our Q4 and full year update. As we have communicated in January, we had a very good first year of launch with AUCATZYL in the U.S. with $74.3 million in revenue recognized in 2025. By the end of 2025, we had 67 centers activated and are building on positive physician feedback and reliable high-quality product delivery for our second year. We are reiterating our guidance for 2026 with net revenue of $120 million to $135 million, a shift to positive gross margins in 2026 and increasing our commercial footprint, targeting more than 80 activated centers by end of 2026. Regarding gross margins, larger volumes will drive down fixed costs and improvements in the operating model will reduce variable cost per batch. By the end of 2025, we had also achieved regulatory approvals in the EU and in the U.K. and achieved market access in the U.K. and have initiated the launch at the very beginning of this year. On Slide 5, alongside the launch in the U.S., the ROCCA Consortium, which stands for real-world outcomes collaborative of CAR T in Adult ALL, collected data from all patients treated with AUCATZYL within participating institutions. Overall, 96 patients were apheresed. Of those, 91 actually achieved the infusions. And 5 patients did not receive an infusion due to medical reasons, either due to progressive disease or a combination of progressive disease and infection or a lineage switch of the disease and loss of CD19. Of the 91 patients that received the dosing, both infusions were received in all of those patients. And by the time of the analysis at the beginning of this year, 84 patients were evaluable for a day 28 assessment for response. The median follow-up is obviously relatively short because this was the first year of launch. So the median follow-up was 137 days from first CAR T cell infusion. Moving to Slide #6. What we're seeing in terms of the outcomes, we're looking here at both the outcome of the ROCCA Consortium in the real-world setting, and we actually juxtapose our prior clinical trial experience in the FELIX study. What is worthwhile realizing that the 96 patients that were actually collected in the database approximate about 60% of the U.S. commercial patients that were treated during the course of the first year of launch. When we look in terms of the patient population, we do see that we see a wide range of age with a median age of about 50 years comparable to what we had in FELIX and a very wide range, including patients that were very much on the elderly side already. Now what was very encouraging was to also see that when moving to the real-world setting that we actually were able to maintain the safety profile that we have seen with AUCATZYL or obe-cel in the FELIX study. So the real-world observation was from a CRS perspective, from a cytokine release syndrome perspective, is that about 59% of the patients had a cytokine release syndrome of Grade 1 or Grade 2, but no patient experienced a Grade 3 or higher cytokine release syndrome. Similarly, when we're looking in the -- on to the ICANS side, we had 17% of the patients that experienced Grade 1 or Grade 2 ICANS and only 3% experienced Grade 3 ICANS in this -- in the real-world setting. When you then look at the -- and compare that to the FELIX experience, you do see that, that actually does translate very well. We had in FELIX on CRS, a slightly higher level overall of cytokine release syndrome observed. And we also had a small proportion of 2% of the patients with high-grade cytokine release syndrome. And similarly, on the neurological toxicity side on the ICANS, we had in the FELIX study, 23% of the patients experiencing ICANS and about 7% experienced high-grade ICANS. So overall, a very nice reproduction of our clinical experience now in the actual real-world setting. Now when we look at the efficacy side, obviously, this is early data. So the -- what was available is the tumor assessment at day 28. Further data may become available at later time points, but that is what so far has been analyzed and what was presented at the ASGCT meeting in an oral presentation this year in Salt Lake City. What you see is, again, on the left-hand side, the data from the real-world setting. And you can see that overall, we have about 92% overall complete remission rate in the real-world setting, which actually is quite similar to what we've seen overall from a picture perspective with the mature FELIX data at 3 months, and it looks somewhat improved over the day 28 assessment in the FELIX study. But this, again, is a very nice, I think, confirmation of the data and the observations we had in our clinical trial now in a real-world setting and in patients that were obviously now treated in the normal standard of care environment that obviously at times can differ from clinical trial environments. So what is important is, obviously, the data is very nicely aligned with what we have prior observed. Very nicely corroborating the data that we have presented in the past. But what we also do see in the patient population that there is also a wider range of patients included from a tumor burden perspective, as you would expect in the real-world setting, where once you have evidence of disease coming back, you wouldn't wait treating the patient until the patient had high disease burden, but you would intervene at an earlier time point. It's reflective of the actual standard of care that we're seeing in the disease setting. So very encouraging observation of the first year. I think for us, quite a remarkable coincidence that indeed it was -- the Consortium was ready to collect the data practically from day 1 that we were able to make product available. And with that, get a real-time view of the performance of the product, both from a manufacturing, from a supply perspective, but also from an outcomes perspective. So with that, I'd like to move to Slide #7. And just a brief word on the overall activities that we have, in particularly around obe-cel oral capsule. Obviously, we have now a very strong foundation in the Adult ALL segment with our first label and the product in the market and performing well in the market. And we're now obviously building on that to actually broaden the utility of the product across a range of additional indications. And obviously, one of the first indications that is natural -- it's very natural to add is actually to aim for an ability to offer the product across the entire age range within acute leukemia. And hence, we started the work on the CATULUS study, and I'll briefly show you the data in the upcoming 2 slides. But what we're doing with the CATULUS data is really looking to actually get a data set that allows us to also get to a label for pediatric patients. We had started with a Phase 1 data set, which was presented at ASH just at the end of last year. And based on that data and discussions with the agency, we agreed on a path to expand the study and with that expanded study should have the data as a pivotal study to support a future label in this particular pediatric population. The second study that obviously we've been very active in, and we also reported data on at the end of last year, first at ACR and then in an oral presentation at ASH is the first experience that we gained in the autoimmune setting, and this is in systemic lupus with very advanced patients. It's the CARLYSLE study. This is a Phase 1 study where we evaluated the activity of the product and the safety of the product in this group of patients. And we have reported initial data based on that data and also interaction with the agency, we designed then the LUMINA study, which is focusing on lupus nephritis patients that are advanced patients, and we're in the process of actually enrolling that study. So that study is off the ground and running. And we expect data in 2028 for the lupus nephritis population. We have alignment with the FDA on the design and also as the design as a pivotal study to get us to enable the approval of the product if the data obviously can be generated. In addition, we're looking at progressive MS as sort of an exploratory study. That's a Phase 1 study called the BOBCAT study, which is currently enrolling. We treated the first patient in October last year. So that's enrolling, and we expect to have full data for this Phase 1 experience during the course of 2027 and hope to have early data by the end of this year to get a first view. Overall, when you look at the flow from the pivotal study perspective, the pediatric ALL study, we expect to have data by the end of 2027. The LUMINA study, again, pivotal data in '28. And in '26, we expect, obviously, a longer-term update and data update from the CARLYSLE study, which is planned for the end of the year. Now in addition, there are additional opportunities that we see with the products that we actually have obviously, on the one hand, a continuation of data collection that we expect to see from the ROCCA Consortium and sort of more of that experience being frankly, collected and analyzed in their hands. And then on the other hand, there is a substantial interest for investigator-sponsored studies with a particular focus on the opportunity in frontline patients to see whether you could actually develop a definitive consolidation and have data in that -- from that -- in that space to see whether indeed there is activity in that early setting as well. So there's quite a lot of interest, obviously, to explore a broader opportunity base here for the product. And also when we look at our internal studies, I think a very nice news flow as we go through '26 and '27 into '28 with very meaningful data updates and hopefully, data sets that will enable a broadening of the opportunity commercially as well for the product. With that, I would like to actually, on the next 2 slides, briefly summarize the data that was presented at the ASH conference for the pediatric experience. These are all relapsed/refractory patients. And I would like to start on Slide #8 with just a brief view on the safety data as it was presented at ASH. And what you can see when you go through the safety data set is you see this is consistent with what we have seen in the adult population in terms of immunological toxicity infection risk as well as neutropenia, which is very well characterized in this population. When we then go to Slide #9, what you can see here is a swim plot. First, I think, to observe is that, in fact, almost all patients managed to actually achieve a complete remission, either a CR or CRi. Overall, we do see that it was a CR/CRi level at the 95% level and the CR level in just around 91% of the patients. So clearly confirming the very high level of activity, consistent, obviously, with what we're seeing in the adult population as well. And we start to see a good duration of responses, as you sort of see the swim plot here in front of you. Obviously, the follow-up is still relatively early in this population. We have a median follow-up of 8.8 months. With that, I'd like to just briefly look on Slide #10 on how we're actually moving forward on the pediatric side. So we have decided to add an additional 30 patients for the Phase 2 portion of the study. It's an international study. So we have centers in the U.S., U.K. and in Spain active. We have developed the approach in collaboration with the Children's Oncology Group, the key group for pediatric oncology in the U.S. And in terms of the age range, we include patients between 0 and 18 years of age. You remember that our label in the U.S. is 18 years and older. And we have stipulated a minimum body weight, to 6 kilogram. Remember, the way we dose in pediatric patients with a single infusion with 1 million cells per kilogram. In terms of the population that we're including, obviously, these are relapsed/refractory patients, and we have a particular focus on the patients that have in the first line, a high-risk relapse and that -- first -- sorry, first line high-risk relapse population, which is actually populations currently excluded from access to CAR T therapy. I want to make sure there's an opportunity also for those patients to benefit from CAR T therapy. And hence, we're including that population in addition to obviously the broader range of relapsed/refractory patients. So this is where we are on the pediatric ALL side. As I mentioned, we expect to have data by the end of 2027. Moving to Slide 11 and the advanced SLE population that we have studied in the CARLYSLE study. We have determined the recommended Phase 2 dose in that study, which is a 50 million single infusion after the dose. When we look at the patient population that we have in the Phase 1, it was patients that had to the large extent, significantly impaired kidney function as well as quite a wide range of additional manifestations of autoimmune disease that you would actually then see represented in the SLEDAI-2K disease scores. And in fact, we're having overall a population with very high levels of disease scores, which obviously represent a very challenging to patient population. We have now 11.4 months of follow-up in the 50 million cell dose cohort. We achieved in 5 out of 6 of those patients, a DORIS response, achieved in 3 of 6 a complete renal remission. The product was overall well tolerated. We saw no ICANS and we had no high-grade CRS in these patients. And we start to get a good feel for some of the key biomarkers. And just to give you just a quick snapshot on the data, if you go to Slide #12. This is actually from the actual ASH presentation and starting on the left-hand upper side, the summary of the safety data. Obviously, the key there is overall very good, very well tolerated product and minimal immunological toxicity that we have picked up in the form of CRS and ICANS. Below that, you see the SLEDAI scores. You see in different colors, the different manifestations of autoimmune disease that are shown on the legend on the right-hand side of that panel. And you can see that these patients do improve over time. The blue color that you see is actually the renal scores in these patients. And obviously, some of these patients already had very advanced, very challenging disease. If we go to the right upper panel, you do see kind of a depiction of the DORIS remissions. And you see that 5 of the 6 patients actually converted into a DORIS response. The DORIS response actually looks at both the manifestation of the disease as you would actually have it depicted in the SLEDI score. So you need to have the SLEDI score improvement. But you also want to see that the patients are getting down to low levels of corticosteroids of no more than 5 milligrams per day or less. And so it is both a measure, obviously, of the improvement overall, but also the fact that, that is now a state that the patients are in where they get what's typically referred to as physiological levels of steroids. Now at the bottom on the right-hand side, we see basically took a look at both the persistence and the recovery of the B cell compartment. When we look at persistence, we do see that the median persistence is 3 months for the product. And when we look at the time to recovery, the median time to recovery for the B cells, we see that is at 6 months. We've seen very deep remission, a reset, a naive state after the B cells start to reappear and then obviously, over time, differentiation of these cells from there on forward. But this is clearly a deep cut and a nice sequence of loss of persistence followed by recurrence of B cells, as you would expect from a mechanism of action perspective. When we then go to Slide 13, this is a quick look at the way that we are developing in lupus nephritis. We've obviously done the CARLYSLE study. We selected the dose. We actually also have included now in the CARLYSLE study and report at the end of the year also teenagers, patients 12 years and older and include that population as well because we believe it's a particular medical need and quite often a very aggressive course of the disease in these teenagers and young adults. Based on this data, we're moving or have moved into the LUMINA study, which is a single-arm, 30-patients study in patients that have gone through B cell depleting antibodies. And Calcineurin inhibitors failed on both and are now basically outside the approved standard of care in this -- for that stage of the disease. The study is enrolling, and we're actually are active in the U.S., in the U.K., in Spain, and we're likely going to add 1 or 2 additional countries on top. When we then think forward, obviously, there is an opportunity once you actually create a foothold in the indication to then think about the ability to broadening the use of the product in a wider set of patients, and that's going to be sort of the second step once we sort of achieved our first approval in the indication. We expect data for the LUMINA study, as indicated in 2028. And then finally, on Slide 14, just as a reminder, the progressive MS study that we're conducting in the BOBCAT study. And obviously here, really what we're looking at is both the safety or obviously, the safety profile on the one hand, the clinical impact from a disease score perspective as well as a range of biomarkers and imaging measures to understand the activity of the product in these patients and obviously, depending on outcome, we'll move from there. So with that, we're getting to the financial results section, and I'm handing over to Rob.
Thanks, Christian, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone. It's my pleasure to review our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025, and I'll be referring to the information on Slide 16. Before diving into the specific numbers, I would like to note a refinement to the accounting treatment related to our product revenue and cost of goods sold that are reflected in the results that we'll discuss today. Importantly, this change has no material impact on our existing or anticipated AUCATZYL revenue and has a practical benefit of better aligning the timing of revenue and cost of sales. On a full year 2025 basis and moving forward, we plan to recognize both the full value of product sales and the associated cost of goods sold upon confirmation of the second dose administration for AUCATZYL. From a revenue perspective, this means we will no longer recognize a 50-50 split across the first and second dose confirmations. This also eliminates the previous deferred revenue accounting and earlier cost of goods recognition associated with those deferred revenues. The accounting for personalized cell therapy products is an emerging area. And during our year-end reported review process, we and our auditor concluded on this refined position within the accounting standards and again, with no material impact on the financial statements. Now on to the results. Net product revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $23.3 million, bringing us to a total of $74.3 million for the first full year of AUCATZYL sales. I'll also note that we also recorded a $1 million license revenue component in Q4 2025, related to the achievement of a clinical milestone under our license and option agreement with Moderna. Combined, this gives you the $24.3 million in total revenue for the fourth quarter. Cost of sales in the fourth quarter totaled $25.3 million, and that's compared to $11.4 million for the same period in 2024. This change was primarily driven by having a full quarter of sales in 2025 and having only a partial quarter of commercial manufacturing activity expense recognition upon FDA approval back in November of 2024. Additionally, cost of sales in Q4 2025 includes canceled orders in the period, patient access program product, inventory reserves or write-offs, third-party royalties for certain technology licenses. As discussed on our full year guidance, we expect to shift to positive gross margin this year based on increasing patient volume, improving overall plant utilization, together with executing on operational efficiencies. Moving on, our research and development expense was $35.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2025. That compared to $30.8 million during the same period in 2024. This change was primarily driven by an increase in research and development activities, including some of our new clinical trial start-up and a reduction in the period-over-period U.K. R&D tax credit. This was partially offset by commercial manufacturing-related employee and infrastructure costs that have now shifted to cost of sales and inventory. Our selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $35.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $33.7 million in the same period in 2024. This increase was primarily due to salaries and other employee-related costs, driven by the increased headcount supporting the commercialization activities. Our loss from operations for the 3 months ended December 31, 2025, was $72.5 million as compared to $75.9 million for the same period in '24. And finally, net loss was $90.3 million for the 3 months ending December 31, 2025, compared to $27.6 million for the same period in '24. Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at December 31, 2025, totaled $300.7 million.
Hello, Rob? Rob are you still there? SP1 Pardon me, Amanda, can you hear me?
This is Christian. I can hear you.
Okay. Looks like we might have just lost Rob. . [Technical Difficulty].
Okay. I think I'm going to take over.
Sorry about that.
Are you back? Okay.
Okay. I'm going to pick up on the -- our cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of '25 totaled $300.7 million as compared to $588 million at the end of December 2024. That decrease was primarily driven by net cash used in operating activities and impacted by a delayed receipt of approximately $18.6 million related to the 2023 R&D tax credit that we are expecting from the U.K. HMRC. As Christian noted, we are reiterating financial guidance issued in January that we expect between $120 million and $135 million in AUCATZYL net product revenue in 2026. This includes contribution from both the U.S. and U.K. markets. Finally, based on our current operating plans, including anticipated AUCATZYL net revenues, we expect that current and projected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund our operations into Q4 2027. I'll now hand back to Christian to wrap up with a brief outlook on expected milestones. Christian?
Thanks, Rob. All right. So going to Slide 18, upcoming milestones. We're actually just about 2 weeks away from a Virtual KOL Event that will be focused on acute leukemia and the opportunity there. I'll talk a little bit more on the next slide about that. We then actually have -- if you look into '26, we expect towards the end of the year, longer-term follow-up from the CARLYSLE Phase 1 trial. We also expect first data from our AUTO8 program in collaboration with UCL on light chain amyloidosis. Name of the trial is ALARIC and early data from the BOBCAT Phase 1 trial in progressive MS. The full data for BOBCAT is then expecting during the course of 2027. And we also, by the year-end of '27, expect the full Phase 2 data for the CATULUS study, which obviously is designed as a pivotal study. And then the second pivotal study, the LUMINA study in lupus nephritis is expected to read out in 2028. So with that, just a quick look on Slide 19, the event that we're planning for April 8. We got a great group of speakers who will talk through the landscape and the opportunity. It starts with Dr. Jae Park from Memorial Sloan Kettering, who will talk about the Adult ALL treatment landscape and unmet medical need. Dr. Lori Muffly from Stanford will talk through the ROCCA real world experience with AUCATZYL. Dr. Elias Jabbour from MD Anderson will look at the opportunity in the earlier lines of treatment in ALL and particularly through the lens of investigator-sponsored trials. And then we will get to the pediatric population with Dr. Michael Pulsipher from Utah University Huntsman, who will look at the medical need in the pediatric patients and the initial data that we have from the CATULUS study. The event, obviously, is going to be webcast and also will be recorded. And we're looking forward to hopefully many of you being able to join us, a great group of speakers, and I think a very nice direct feedback and sense for where the disease setting is and where the opportunities are and also, obviously, their perception of how AUCATZYL fits into this landscape. With that, just to finish and to wrap up, the focus for 2026, clearly drive market share for a AUCATZYL, improve the gross margins for the product and expand the utility of obe-cel with the clinical trial programs, development programs that we have ongoing that are designed to give us overall a broader range of indications ultimately to be able to serve with obe-cel. With that, I think we're at the end of the prepared remarks, and we're happy to take questions.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from James Shin with Deutsche Bank.
I have a couple. For the 2026 guide of $120 million to $135 million, Christian, can you -- or Rob, can you guys help us with how much might come from U.K. and other ex-U.S. regions? Secondly, what's the latest on more EU adoption or reimbursement for AUCATZYL? And then Christian, given we're pretty much through 1Q '26, can you shed any light on how AUCATZYL uptake has trended?
Yes. Well, first of all, thanks a lot for joining, James. So with regards to the U.K. guidance, as Rob said, this includes both the U.S. as well as the U.K. We're not planning to break that out. Obviously, we're early on in the launch. The U.K. is a substantially smaller country than the U.S. and much smaller population. So we're going to be actually presenting the data in the aggregate. And we do not expect a major contribution yet from the U.K. given that this is obviously very early in the process. So at this point, I think too early to tell and probably too early and frankly, too early to break out. With regards to other EU countries, we do not expect in 2026 any contributions from other -- from EU countries. As you remember, we have an approval in the EU, and we're actually in conversation with market access authorities in Europe to see whether there's appropriate path here for us to take. I think what is very clear for us is that obviously, we need to be able to enter a market in a way that actually is economically sensible. And different from maybe some of the larger players, we cannot afford actually taking a loss doing that. So we're in the process of evaluating, and we certainly will keep you updated as we learn more and we get a better understanding of the dynamics here. But for 2026, we are not actually guiding to any revenue coming outside of the U.S. and U.K. And with regards to Q1, obviously, we're not going to break out individual quarters. We've given you the full year guidance as we had actually at the beginning of the year and now reiterated. I think in overall, when you look during the course of last year, what we certainly saw were elements of seasonality that we're picking up. And certainly, in the -- as you sort of go through in the summer with vacation periods that is clearly visible as well as kind of the year-end holidays do have an impact on patients, particularly those patients that are -- have an ability to, frankly, buy some time or bridge some time and obviously are interested to sort of spend time with their families, particularly over Christmas, New Year's. So there's elements there that we see over the years. But overall, we're not going to give, I think, any sort of particular guidance per quarter because, frankly, there's too much variability in those numbers, but we're confident on the aggregate for the full year.
Our next question comes from Gil Blum with Needham & Company.
So very nice ROCCA results. Do you think this is going to influence physician behavior? Is this sufficiently socialized? I mean feedback that we've gotten is most physicians already view AUCATZYL as a preferred therapeutic?
Thanks for joining, Gil. Obviously, we're very pleased with the observation, the real-world observation. And I think what's important to understand in this disease setting is that, obviously, this is an incidence-driven disease. It's a onetime therapy. And so what's really at the core of your ability to actually build market share is the continued buildup of confidence, experience and confidence that the treating physicians have. So that's a critical component in that, obviously, the ROCCA data, which is the physician's own data, obviously, is very important. Now we have to understand when we look into kind of the physician groups that actually are treating ALL patients, this is not just the transplanters or CAR T therapists that actually are treating ALL patients, but the wide range of hemato-oncologists who are treating them and particularly in the frontline and early relapse setting. So there's a lot of work that we do to sort of expand, obviously, the adoption of the product across the range of stem cell transplanters and CAR T therapists, but also increase the awareness within the group of those physicians that tend to do the frontline therapy. So those are kind of the key dimensions that we're working on. And obviously, the data is very important because this is their own data, their own experience in many of the centers for many of the centers that are very relevant for the treatment of ALL patients. So we think the data is very important, but there is a substantial amount of work that we have ahead of us to sort of go from a market penetration that is probably somewhere around the 10% range to really start driving that towards the levels of penetration that we're seeing with Blincyto, which is what we believe actually the actual potential would look like.
And are there any insights you can provide on how the LUMINA enrollment is going?
So the LUMINA study, as I indicated, is taking place in several countries. We started out in the U.K. and obviously building on the initial experience from the CARLYSLE study. So that is starting to get -- I think, to start to gain good momentum. We're in the process of adding U.S. centers, and we expect U.S. centers to come online in the upcoming quarter. And with that, I think we're going to start to see, I think, a very nice sort of development in the disease setting and in the enrollment characteristics. So far, we're seeing kind of what we had expected to see in the indication and then seeing the type of flow of patients consistent with what our expectations were.
All right. And one last one for Rob. So now that we're recognizing revenues and costs on the second dose, how should we view patients only receive one dose?
Yes. Thanks for the question, Gil. So maybe just as a reminder on that, I mean, if you go back to the experience in the clinical study or even commercial experience last year, we're talking about a relatively small number of situations in patients. So they don't get the second dose. So the cutoff will be certainly, if there's a first dose towards the end of a quarter, that patient may still get the second dose, that revenue won't be recognized. But if they get the second dose in the second -- in the next period would be recognized then. If the patient only ever gets the first dose, that's going to be a situation where there's a number of factors that will feed in, depending on the type of patient in terms of the split CMS reimbursement or credits according to the trade policy that may apply. But eventually, what will happen there is we will wait until cash receipt to recognize that revenue on that individual patient. Whether it's a full reimbursement or a 50% reimbursement, it really depends on the patient characteristics.
Our next question comes from Salim Syed with Mizuho.
Congrats on the progress. Just one for us on cadence of catalysts for this year. So I know we're getting a lot of data here at the year-end of '26. But a lot of these trials like BOBCAT, LUMINA, et cetera, I think even ALARIC are all open-label studies with -- I presume you're going to be looking at data through the course of the year. Is there any potential here on these studies for potential early disclosure? And can you just remind us specifically on BOBCAT, the intervals that you'll be measuring disability progression?
Yes. Really good question. Thanks for joining us. With regards to CATULUS the -- on the CARLYSLE study, obviously, we have presented sort of the baseline data at the end of last year. So what the next real question for that study is really kind of the longer-term outcome in these patients and obviously also the additional experience in the adolescent patients. We don't think we're going to make sense to actually to piecemeal that data. I think you want to give a proper update with a comprehensive review of the data, which is what we're planning to do. With regards to the ALARIC study, so that's the first data cut we're going to do in that study. Obviously, you want to have enough patients and also from a dose level perspective, have enough experience to actually look at the data and understand kind of what the impact of the treatment is. With regards to BOBCAT, one of the key things that obviously you'd like to understand is, on the one hand, the pharmacodynamic markers that you can look at and some of the imaging markers. But you also want to obviously see whether there is actually any sign of clinical activity eventually, and that will actually take time to build. So in a way, it's tempting to look very early, but the thing is you will not actually have any understanding whether or not there is a clinical -- anything you could link to a clinical outcome. And I think ultimately, that's ultimately what we would like to do is to be able to sort of make these connections. But even if you look at the pharmacodynamic markers, you need a certain number of data points that you collect, so you understand what trends are to actually get a good sense of what it is you're looking at. The individual data points, I think, are tricky, particularly early on and can be misleading. So we're not planning to actually come early with data from BOBCAT that doesn't make sense because I think the data probably would be not interpretable as much as we can get excited about individual patients and individual observations. So we're planning to come towards the year-end, but we're not expecting to come earlier than that because I don't think it's helpful.
Okay. And same on LUMINA, I presume there'd be no potential early disclosure here that's open label.
Well, it's open label, but it's also a pivotal study. So the thing you don't want to do is you don't want to actually start to put information out that may actually impact the trial itself. And that's particularly tricky in single-arm studies and open-label studies. So that's something you absolutely would not do. And remember, we didn't do -- we didn't do that with the FELIX study either. Because you start to risk actually the integrity of the study.
Our next question comes from Matt Phipps with William Blair.
On the progressive MS study, you were kind of hitting on this, but just, I guess, a follow-up. Stanford recently presented data on 6 patients at ACTRIMS. And a couple of patients maybe saw some improvements by 6 months in ES scores and CSF oligoclonal bands. I guess any thoughts on this data and then how that makes you think about what you could present at BOBCAT later this year? And then for AUTO8 and AL amyloidosis, similarly, I mean, cilta-cel has shown very high response rates in that setting. What do you think the CD19 aspect of AUTO8 gets you as far as differentiation from cilta-cel?
Yes. Very good questions. Thanks, Matt. So with regards to the data that was presented at ACTRIMS from the Stanford team, I think overall, encouraging data. They're showing certain correlations between pharmacodynamic markers, and there's early observations on the disease score in these patients. The challenge, and this is goes back to the answer I gave to Salim before, the challenge is that obviously part of those disease scores also include patient assessment and physician assessment, which obviously can be more subjective. And that actually creates some of the challenges in the interpretability of that data, particularly if you look at it early on. Overall, what you look -- what you'd like to see is probably some congruence between pharmacodynamic activity and some early indication of activity. And we think that stage, we're probably going to reach sometime next year in '27 with a longer-term follow-up and more stability in the data. I think early on, you'd be looking more at some of the pharmacodynamic markers and general presence and product properties, persistence, presence of the product in CSS, those types of assessments that you'd be looking at and then obviously, B-cell depletion data and so on. But I think in terms of going from there forward and sort of concluding whether or not you might actually have the type of clinical outcome, I think, would be premature in the early time point I think we get a better sense for that during the course of next year, but it takes a longer observation time to start to be able to have put some weight on that. What was encouraging with the Stanford data was it suggested that the patients did improve. But again, it's early data and it's early days, but definitely worthwhile, obviously, pursuing and frankly, figuring it out. And then with regards to the ALARIC data, so that's obviously light chain amyloidosis, predominantly a plasma cell disorder. And what we're looking at there is we're actually looking predominantly at the action of the BCMA component of the product. And then we're going to see whether or not the CD19 component adds to that or not. But the fundamental activity, we expect, obviously, very clearly to be driven by the BCMA either predominantly or maybe even exclusively.
Our next question comes from Roger Song with Jefferies.
This is [ Fiona ] up for Roger. Congrats on the quarter. So I understand that you will shift to a positive gross margin this year. And how should we think about the near-term on involvement of gross margin once it turns positive? And with your partnership with Soliris platform early this year, how quickly can this automated platform be integrated into your commercial supply chain? And what's the magnitude of cost reduction do you expect from this approach?
Yes. Very good questions. Thank you. So let me start out with just -- what we're doing in order to actually drive down overall production costs and also with that improve gross margins for the product. The 2 key areas. One is quite obvious, which is you run more products through the infrastructure. And with that, the fixed cost obviously can be broken down to a large number, a larger number of products. And with that, the contribution of fixed costs becomes reduced on a product per product basis. That's very straightforward. The second aspect, which is really critical, though, is that we're also doing a lot of work in optimizing the operating model that we have in our facility and really are optimizing every step along the way. And between those 2 elements, the optimization on the one hand and the higher level of volume through the facility, we actually can drive the cost down substantially over time. Overall, that is going to be the key trajectory we're going to be on and will be the key driver to get us to an economically attractive place. The Soliris opportunity is obviously one where we do a feasibility study to see what the comparability of the data between the 2 different manufacturing setups, which is from an operating setup slightly different. But obviously, the biology that you're running is the same biology in the 2 systems. For us, the particular interest is actually in -- for situations where we might actually have to scale substantially because of a new indication that we might be able to unlock that may require us to actually set up a substantially larger manufacturing capacity. And so the -- when we look at Solaris, this is much more an ability to scale to a substantially higher level of volume rather than actually to drive down costs. the primary focus is actually on the ability to scale. And the reason why we're looking into it is that we obviously do not know where the out where we're going to come out on some of the new indications, particularly also on MS, but assume a positive outcome in MS, that could actually drive substantial demand and substantial need to be able to stand up capacity. And that is sort of the context under which we're actually looking at this, and we're looking doing the feasibility work because we believe that could be an attractive way to actually scale and scale in an economical way. It doesn't actually take anything away from what we're doing at our own facility at the Nucleus facility, which is obviously really focused on delivering for the ALL patients and the smaller subsets of the autoimmune patients, which is what the facility is designed to support.
Our next question comes from Yanan Zhu with Wells Fargo.
Just maybe a follow-up to the primary MS study questions earlier. The study has 3 dose cohorts at the year-end readout, can you talk about how many dose cohorts could we expect and whether a signal of efficacy can be discerned from kind of dose response on some of the metrics? And if you could be a little more specific on powerful success, that would be very helpful. And I have a follow-up as well.
Okay. Thanks for joining Yanan and all really good questions. Obviously, this is an exploratory study, which means that we expect this is a study where we will actually learn quite a bit along the way. We've designed it as a dose escalation study. What we do know is that the product obviously does give us an ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and be active in the brain. We've seen that with acute leukemia patients with CNS involvement. We've seen it also in primary CNS lymphoma patients. So we know the product has the right properties. It has an ability to do that. What the sort of the appropriate dose level is, is something we're evaluating in this study. We started at 100 million cell dose. We have an ability to either step up or step down, both is possible. And obviously, one of the key things we're going to be looking at is the presence of CAR T cells in CSF as sort of a measure of the ability to actually cross the blood-brain barrier and going to the compartment that we know that systemically applied therapeutics typically cannot actually get to and typically cannot be active in. So that's where the mechanism helps a lot and gives us sort of a differentiation here. Now in terms of where -- what we're sort of working through is obviously working through the dose levels. We need to have with each one, I think, a reasonable level of follow-up. So by the end of the year, I think it would be really very early data from our initial dose cohort to get a feel for what that data might look like. And it will be, as I indicated, predominantly around the product properties in terms of expansion, the safety profile, obviously, the ability to sort of actually access the CSF -- and then I think, additional sort of typical pharmacodynamic markers, including B-cell depletion and so on. And then we're going to obviously record all the typical other parameters that you can record both biochemicals, imaging parameters. And we'll see whether there's any correlation between any of these parameters. I think it will be very -- it will be too early to actually understand where there are true connections and where there's a link to outcome. I think that is just not enough observation time. But we believe as we go through the course of next year that, that we start to get to a place where we actually have a longer observation time with that have an opportunity to start looking more at clinical impact and hopefully can put more emphasis, but also more trust in the data that we're collecting on the clinical side, just given the inherent variability that, that data can actually represent. So that's where we are. So it will be very -- an early peak, but then the much more relevant data during the course of 2027.
Great. That's super helpful. Then on the B-ALL launch for AUCATZYL, can you comment on whether there's any use in earlier line setting such as MRD-positive consolidation? And also, we see there is a Sloan Kettering ITT that just opened for MRD-negative consolidation. Can you share your thoughts on how that could be leveraged in expanding the opportunity?
Right. So in terms of the actual use, current use, what we're seeing is that -- and this was what was presented at the ASTCT meeting, and Laurie will talk more specifically to it. But what we're seeing is similar to what we've seen with other products in the relapsed/refractory setting that patients can be included that actually have mineral residual disease or low disease burden at the time of inclusion. They're still relapsed/refractory. So it's the same setting, but it's basically inclusion at a time when the disease hasn't actually grown quite to the level of morphological disease. So that we do see in the data, we see maybe about 1/3 of the patients, give or take, in that bucket, which is frankly what you would expect to see. This is the standard of care. This is the way these patients are being assessed and the intervention is done when you see when you have evidence of relapse. And as I mentioned, none of the physicians will wait for things to get worse for a patient when they already have evidence of the disease coming back. So we do see that, which is very expected in terms of the real-world setting. I don't think we have patients that actually are in a frontline MRD setting at this point. I don't think we do. But that's something that we'll need to sort of look at and sort of see more kind of data coming back from the Consortium to see whether indeed that might happen over time. It's not something that we expect to see for the time being. Now what you've picked up with the memorial entry in clinicaltrial.gov is a trial that's done in connection with other centers across the U.S. and there's a second study as well in the U.S. that are currently looking for as an investigator-sponsored studies where those investigators are interested in exploring the use of obe-cel in frontline patients that have gone through the initial frontline treatment and then actually have either evidence or no evidence of disease in the studies where it differ in terms of their designs in that regard to then do a consolidation, but do, in essence, have an ability and look at a population or patients that were treated not for the full extent of frontline treatment, which is like an 18-months treatment with quite a range of therapeutics and then at the end, put the CAR T, but rather actually look at an abbreviated initial therapy and aim for a definitive consolidation. That's the thought process that these investigators have sort of brought forward and what they're interested in looking at. And also it's an area we're very interested in. And from a fundamental perspective, certainly if you think about it from a patient perspective, would be desirable to find therapies that actually can actually reduce the overall treatment time and reduce the overall amount of toxicity that the patients do get exposed, particularly in the frontline treatment. So we understand that there could be real benefit in those settings. And I think we'll learn from those investigators experience, and we'll get a sense for the profile of the product in those patients.
Our next question comes from Emily Bodnar with H.C. Wainwright.
I guess how much additional follow-up and durability data should we expect from the CARSLYLE trial later this year for the 50 million and 100 million cell doses? And what are you kind of looking to see to gain additional confidence in the LUMINA trial?
Yes. Thanks a lot for joining, Emily. So the CARSLYLE study, I did mention we had 8.8 months of follow-up for the data cut at ASH. I would assume for that -- and that's the initial cohort of the 50 million cohort. I would assume we have 12 more months between 6 and 12 more months, depending when the exact data count happens. So we're looking at somewhere in the range of 1.5 years to close to -- well, probably around 1.5 years of follow-up for the 50 million cohort. And the 100 million cohort will probably be just under probably a year of follow-up at that point in time and probably half a year follow-up for the adolescent patients. So that's kind of the ballpark in terms of follow-up that we expect. And in terms of the LUMINA study, the difference with the LUMINA study is that the population is slightly different. In the CARSLYLE study, it was SLE patients with organ involvement. Happens to be that the vast majority of these SLE patients had pretty significant kidney damage and kidney involvement. So they had a lupus nephritis component to their disease. What we're having here in the LUMINA study is more precisely defined the population and it's defined by the prior lines of treatment that the patients went through. In this -- in the LUMINA case, it's a CD20 or other B-cell depleting antibodies and calcineurin inhibitors being after those [ 2 lines ]. And at that point in time, you actually get sort of outside the approved therapeutics from a label perspective. And so it's more defined, it's more defined population. And then there's obviously a range of kidney -- level of kidney damage and a requirement for the inflammatory process to be ongoing. So indeed, this type of an approach has an ability to improve the outcome. So it's a different definition of the patients. Obviously, very similar overall properties, but it's a different way of defining the patient population as the basis to then actually have a definable primary endpoint that would be interpretable from a pivotal perspective.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the conclusion of the Q&A portion of today's conference. I'd like to turn the call back to Christian for any further remarks.
Well, first of all, thanks, everybody, for joining. We're looking forward to hopefully seeing or hearing from most of you on April 8 when we have the KOLs talk to us about the ALL disease setting of the opportunities. And obviously, after that, it's not far out, and we're going to be meeting again for the Q1. So thank you very much for joining today, and I wish you all a good time.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's presentation. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

