Absci Corporation Common Stock 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Earlier today, Absci released financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. If you haven't received this news release or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investors@absci.com. An archived webcast of this call will be available for replay on Absci's investor relations website at investors.absci.com for at least 90 days after this call. Joining me today are Sean McClain, Absci's Founder and CEO, Zach Jonasson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, and Ransi Somaratne, Chief Medical Officer, Head of R&D. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated.

You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

These include statements regarding the development and clinical progress of our pipeline programs, including ABS-201, the design, enrollment, conduct, and timelines of our ongoing Phase 1/2a HEADLINE trial of ABS-201, the anticipated timing of an interim proof of concept data readout for ABS-201 in the second half of 2026 and full proof of concept data in early 2027, the potential events in ABS-201 into Phase 3 development, the anticipated initiation of a Phase 2 clinical trial of ABS-201 for endometriosis in the fourth quarter of 2026 and potential proof of concept readout in the second half of 2027, the anticipated characteristics and product profile of ABS-201 as a drug product, our target product profile and attributes, the potential for an expedited development pathway, including the possibility of advancing directly from Phase 1/2a into Phase 3, our planned engagement with the FDA regarding development strategy, our partnership with Eli Lilly, including the anticipated benefits thereof, and Eli Lilly's participation on our Endometriosis Advisory Board, the capabilities and anticipated benefits of our platform technology such as Atlas, and potential market opportunity and commercial prospects for ABS-201.

Certain statements may also include projections regarding potential market opportunity. These estimates are based on various assumptions, including potential regulatory approval, final approved label, and the evolving competitive landscape, any of which could cause our actual addressable market to differ materially from these projections. In addition, certain research findings discussed today reflect participant responses to a hypothetical product profile and do not represent clinical results for ABS-201. Additional information regarding the risks and uncertainties that could affect our forward-looking statements is set forth in the press release Absci issued today, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent documents and reports filed by Absci from time to time with the SEC. Except as required by law, Absci disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward-looking statements, either because of new information, future events, or otherwise.

This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the live broadcast August 11, 2026. With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean.

Thanks, Alex. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Absci continues to execute, and I'll walk you through recent highlights, including key progress on ongoing HEADLINE trial, our new partnership with Eli Lilly, and our $100 million financing completed at the end of June. Starting with HEADLINE. In June, we released positive interim phase I data. The data suggests the study drug was well-tolerated with favorable safety and tolerability. Based on interim PK data, ABS-201's half-life supports the potential for just two to three injections over six months. This is exactly why we built our AI platform, to design molecules that meet our target product profile we set out from day one. You've heard us say the prolactin mechanism is underappreciated. Everything we've learned has only strengthened that conviction, and we believe targeting the prolactin receptor has the potential across numerous diseases.

We are also excited to have a partner who shares in that vision. As you saw in June, we announced that Eli Lilly made a $40 million strategic investment in Absci. Our partnership with Eli Lilly is tailored around the clinical development strategy for ABS-201. As a part of this collaboration, we are happy to be welcoming a representative from Lilly onto our Endometriosis Advisory Board. Zach will provide more details of this partnership later in the call. In addition to Lilly, we've seen elevated interest from the investment community in prolactin biology. In June, we completed a $100 million financing, including the $40 million investment from Lilly, from a group of blue-chip investors. We're grateful for this support, which enables the continued development of our existing programs as well as future expansion of our pipeline.

ABS-201's progress is a testament to the platform and the team that created it. Building on that leadership in de novo antibody design with Origin, we've now extended the platform upstream with Atlas, Absci's target to lead autonomous scientist. Atlas is an agentic discovery engine built to remove the bottleneck ahead of design, rapidly identifying and validating the right targets. Atlas integrates literature, genetics, and single-cell sequencing data to surface and triage novel target hypothesis. These flow directly into Origin for epitope-specific de novo design and then into our in-house wet lab for characterization and pathway validation. This process closes a hypothesis to molecule loop and turns discovery into a high throughput fail fast engine by having more shots on goal and better ones. We're already seeing this at work.

Atlas has surfaced potential new indications for our prolactin receptor franchise and independently recovered genetic evidence linking this pathway to pattern hair loss and endometriosis. This is a powerful new tool that every drug hunter at Absci can now leverage. We'll continue deploying this AI-native platform to create therapeutics like ABS-201 with the potential to change the treatment paradigm for patients. With that, I'll turn it over to Ransi to walk through the ABS-201 clinical program.

Ransi. Thanks, Sean, and good afternoon, everyone. in June, we released positive interim phase I data from the ongoing HEADLINE trial of ABS-201.

We continue to be encouraged by the emerging safety, pharmacokinetic, and immunogenicity profile observed to date. As we said in June, blinded aggregate interim data suggests study drug was well-tolerated and exhibited a favorable safety and tolerability profile. Additionally, based on available interim pharmacokinetic data across all four single ascending dose cohorts, half-life for ABS-201 is estimated to be at least 65 days. These results support the potential for dosing two or three times over a six-month period, pending confirmation through continued follow-up across all cohorts. Additionally, new modeling continues to suggest that two to three doses of ABS-201 over six months would be able to achieve greater than 90% receptor occupancy, which we believe is a key driver of meaningful clinical efficacy for hair growth.

These new data are available in the updated corporate deck published on our website today. We are very eager to share our clinical data with you once it's available. Today, we are pleased to share that the multiple ascending dose portion of the study continues to enroll according to plan. We continue to anticipate an interim proof of concept readout in the form of 13-week data later this year. Then, we anticipate our full proof of concept data in the form of 26-week data in early 2027. As a reminder, the HEADLINE trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. The primary endpoints are safety and tolerability, while secondary endpoints include PK, PD, immunogenicity, target area hair count, target area hair width, and target area darkening pigmentation. We will also collect patient-reported outcomes data in this study. The prolactin receptor mechanism for hair growth is unique.

Unlike minoxidil, finasteride, or nutraceuticals, the mechanism underlying ABS-201 is regenerative for the hair follicle, protecting and promoting hair follicle stem cells, restoring CD34 progenitor cells, and stimulating key growth factors IGF-1 and FGF7, while decreasing the catagen-driving TGF-beta 2. This regenerative mechanism is unique to the anti-prolactin receptor pathway and supports the significant durable effects with potential to grow new hair in dormant follicles. Our clinical study is designed to showcase this unique mechanism with our 13-week assessment, which is interim in nature, intended to provide a directionally positive signal. Has the mechanism begun to take hold, and is it building all the machinery and building blocks we see responsible for regenerating the hairs?