Earnings

Arvinas CEO Sets 30% Response Bar For Its First Lymphoma Data In December

Randy Teel says a response rate above 30% at low doses would count as a good showing for ARV-393 in T-cell lymphoma.

Matteo Parrino Jonathan Ponciano

Matteo Parrino, Jonathan Ponciano

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Arvinas CEO Sets 30% Response Bar For Its First Lymphoma Data In December

Arvinas CEO Randy Teel said on the company's third-quarter earnings call Tuesday that a response rate above 30% in T-cell lymphoma patients would excite investigators when the drugmaker shows its first ARV-393 data in December. Arvinas, a clinical-stage company that develops protein-degrading medicines called PROTAC degraders, will present the monotherapy dose-escalation results at the American Society of Hematology meeting.

A bar set below the market drugs

Teel said patients with second-line-plus T-cell lymphoma get a response rate of roughly 35% to 45% from drugs already on the market. In an early dose-escalation study where most patients got doses below the expected efficacious range, he said, "anything over really a 30% response rate" would be "a reasonable bar to set."

Asked how many T-cell patients to expect, Teel said "mid-teens or so." He cautioned that patients on the highest doses, where efficacy is likelier, will have the shortest follow-up, so the durability data will be limited.

Chief Scientific Officer Angela Cacace said the first cohorts were treated below doses predicted to work in preclinical lymphoma models. Responses have still appeared across non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes, she said, including B- and T-cell disease.

B-cell answers wait until mid-2027

An analyst at Evercore ISI asked how T-cell results read across to B-cell disease, where a competing degrader company is focused. Teel said responses have shown up in both at lower doses, but fuller B-cell data will come in a second readout in mid-2027, with more patients at higher doses, longer follow-up and early data from a combination with glofitamab.

Teel said some other players in BCL6 degradation have reported response rates over 50% on monotherapy. Arvinas does not see the setting as winner-take-all, he said, but wants to show it can be competitive. Asked whether the mid-2027 data could support a registration path, he said that is possible in T-cell patients.

Cash into the second half of 2028

Chief Financial Officer Andrew Saik said Arvinas ended the quarter with $558.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities, down from $685.4 million at the end of 2025. He said that projects to fund operations into the second half of 2028, including BCL6 work through next year.

Quarterly research and development expense was $46.9 million, against $64.7 million a year earlier, and general and administrative expense was $12.6 million, against $21 million. Saik also said the company booked its first royalty under its license agreement with Rigel in the quarter, of $.5 million.

The first ARV-393 data come at the American Society of Hematology meeting, Dec. 12-15, with the second readout expected in mid-2027.

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