Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated CORT reported second-quarter 2020 earnings of 23 cents per share, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 20 cents and also improving from the year ago quarter’s 17 cents.
Further, taking into account the impact of stock-based compensation and utilization of deferred tax assets, adjusted earnings came in at 32 cents per share compared with 25 cents in the year-ago quarter.
Moreover, revenues in the reported quarter improved 23% from the prior-year period to $88.6 million, primarily backed by higher sales and a strong uptake of Corcept’s Cushing’s syndrome drug, Korlym. However, sales missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $90 million and were also down sequentially.
On the second-quarter conference call, management stated that in March 2020, some patients refilled their Korlym prescriptions a few days earlier to safeguard against COVID-19-pandemic-related delivery delays. These early refills increased tablet shipments revenues in the last reported quarter. As a result, when patients consumed their small safety stocks in the second quarter, they postponed refilling their prescriptions by a few days, thereby decreasing the company’s second-quarter tablet shipments and revenues.
Research and development expenses escalated 22.7% to $26.5 million. Selling, general and administrative expenses also increased 4.1% to $25.6 million.
Shares of Corcept have rallied 29.7% so far this year against the industry’s decrease of 4.3%.
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2020 Guidance
Corcept reiterated its full-year revenue guidance. The company expects total revenues in the range of $355-375 million.
Pipeline Update
Corcept’s lead candidate relacorilant is being evaluated in the phase III GRACE study to treat Cushing’s syndrome. Dosing is currently underway in the above-mentioned study at sites across the United States, Israel and Europe. The company plans to submit a new drug application for relacorilant in the second quarter of 2022.
Meanwhile, enrollment is underway in the phase III study, GRADIENT, on relacorilant in patients whose Cushing’s syndrome is caused by adrenal adenoma.
Corcept completed enrollment in a phase II study on relacorilant plus Celgene’s [now part of Bristol Myers BMY] Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel) to treat metastatic ovarian cancer and is on track to produce results in first-half 2021.
Last month, Corcept recruited the first patient in the phase III RELIANT study, evaluating relacorilant in combination with Abraxane for the treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The phase III study is expected to enroll 80 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer in the United States. The primary endpoint of the study is to see the objective response rate while the secondary endpoints include progression-free survival and duration of response.
Corcept also expects to begin a phase Ib study on relacorilant plus Merck’s MRK PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in the third quarter of 2020 to treat patients with metastatic or unresectable adrenal cancer.
Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated Quote
Zacks Rank and Key Pick
Corcept currently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
A better-ranked stock in the same sector is BioLineRx Ltd. BLRX, which carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
BioLineRx’s loss per share estimates have been narrowed 21.5% for 2020 and 31.6% for 2021 over the past 60 days. The stock has inched up 5.3% year to date.
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