ORIC Pharmaceuticals discussed its dual-pipeline strategy and competitive positioning at the 12th Annual Cantor Fitzgerald Global Healthcare Conference on Thursday, emphasizing clinical milestones for its PRC2 inhibitor rinzimetostat and EGFR inhibitor enosartib across prostate cancer and lung cancer indications.
Chief Executive Officer Jacob Chacko reaffirmed the company's focus on overcoming treatment resistance in oncology, acknowledging that recent events from competitor Pfizer's MEVPRO program — a mevorimetostat trial reading out in the fourth quarter of 2024 — have driven event-driven trading activity among investors.
"If Pfizer can get a phenomenal hazard ratio with mevorimetostat plus enzalutamide, we are cheering them on because we should be able to do that and better," Chacko said, referencing Pfizer's companion drug dosing regimen of 875 mg twice daily with a half-life of four to five hours compared with ORIC's rinzimetostat at 400 mg once daily with a roughly 20-hour half-life.
ORIC's cash position stands at $388 million as of the end of the second quarter of 2024, carrying minimal debt of $6 million and a current ratio of 13.19, providing a runway into the second half of 2028 to cover the HIMALAYA-1 top-line readout expected in the first half of next year.
The HIMALAYA-1 study, a phase III trial in post-abiraterone castration-resistant prostate cancer, excludes ECOG status 2 patients and caps its control arm at no more than 60% of subjects receiving either an androgen-receptor switch or chemotherapy. Management designed the trial around a 0.66 hazard ratio with 95% power, targeting a median radiographic progression-free survival of approximately 6.75 months in the control arm versus just over 10 months in the treatment arm.
Chacko characterized ORIC's internal progress as resembling "a duck looking calm on the water while they're paddling furiously underneath," noting that while the market debates Pfizer trial statistics, the company is advancing its own programs. A phase III study of enosartib is planned to begin in the first half of 2025, with additional data expected at ESMO 2024, while program updates for rinzimetostat are scheduled later this year.
The addressable markets underscore the commercial potential: post-abiraterone CRPC represents roughly 17,000 patients in the U.S. and a $3.5 billion market domestically, expanding to about $7 billion globally; the broader post-androgen-receptor-inhibitor CRPC population totals approximately 20,000 patients.
In lung cancer, enosartib targets atypical EGFR mutations affecting an estimated 6,000 U.S. patients and a $2.5 billion addressable market, with roughly 35% to 40% of those patients presenting with baseline brain metastases and systemic response benchmarks running in the low to mid-60% range.
Program expansion into castration-sensitive prostate cancer, with HIMALAYA-2 and HIMALAYA-3, is planned for 2025, targeting a market of about 33,000 patients with a treatment duration benchmark near 48 months.
Chief Financial Officer Dominic Piscitelli stressed the company's pragmatic, data-driven approach to decision-making. Shares of ORIC, which closed at $12.04, have surged 52.8% year-to-date and carry analyst price targets ranging from $14 to $27.
