After roughly one month on the market, Revolution Medicines’ RAS inhibitor daraxonrasib is living up to its much-hyped potential, with an initial sales performance that more than one group of analysts considers “eye-popping.”
Still, with some temporary launch factors at play, RevMed leadership espoused a more cautiously optimistic viewpoint as it reported third-quarter earnings Wednesday.
Following an Aug. 26 approval in patients with pretreated pancreatic adenocarcinoma, daraxonrasib—now known by the brand name Rasonque—delivered $197.6 million in sales for Q3, which ended on Sept. 30.
Analysts did not mince words about the stature of Rasonque’s early performance, with the team at Leerink Partners writing to clients that RevMed looks to be “pulling off the best oncology launch to date.” The nearly $200 million the drug secured in just a little over a month also comes well above the $80 million-to-$100 million haul the market had been priming for.
The team at Jefferies, too, remarked that Rasonque’s sales came in more than twice that of “even the most bullish estimates,” now modeling $527 million in expected sales for the drug in the fourth quarter, a fair bit above the roughly $440 million now forecasted by Leerink.
The team at Evercore ISI, for its part, claimed Rasonque’s debut was nothing short of “eye-popping.” The shop is now looking at a potential $500 million in Rasonque sales for the year’s final quarter, which it figures could segue into an expected $2.8 billion across 2027.
While the sales performance to date is indeed “highly encouraging,” Anthony Mancini, RevMed’s chief global commercialization officer, took a measured approach in framing Rasonque’s future potential on a call with analysts.
“With only five weeks of commercialization activity, it’s too early to draw conclusions about the normalized trajectory of launch,” he said, noting that expanded access switches and patients who’d been waiting for the therapy ahead of approval—both of which RevMed highlighted as prominent drivers of the rollout—represent “finite early launch dynamics.”
“As our launch matures,” he said, “revenue will increasingly reflect ongoing treatment for newly eligible patients and ongoing treatment duration.”
The U.S. rollout is nevertheless “off to a strong start,” Mancini said, reiterating RevMed’s priorities to provide a positive treatment experience, secure broad coverage and access and establish Rasonque as a new standard of care for the metastatic pancreatic cancer patients for whom the first-in-class drug is approved.
So far, the company is “encouraged by the progress we’re seeing against each of these priorities,” he added.
Overall, the drug’s sales haul reflects more than 5,000 patients treated in the U.S., coming over the course of just five weeks on the market.
That demand was threefold, according to Manicini. These include patients who are transitioning from RevMed’s U.S. expanded access program, a “sizable cohort” of patients who’d exhausted available treatment options by the time of approval and were “waiting for a new treatment option,” and new eligible patients starting on Rasonque in the wake of the FDA nod.
The transition from the expanded access program to commercial supply has now wrapped up for U.S. patients, the commercialization chief said.
Though the early launch factors Mancini highlighted no doubt gave Rasonque a boost in its initial debut, analysts seemed relatively assured that the RAS inhibitor is destined for a stellar sales run in the long-term.
At Leerink, the team said they estimate that the population of new second-line patients accessing Rasonque was “also robust” in the third quarter. The analysts at Jefferies had a similar take, acknowledging the early bolus for Rasonque while nevertheless espousing continued confidence in what they framed as “‘organic’ demand” for the medicine.
A combination of strong science, transformative efficacy, high unmet need and successful execution by RevMed give Rasonque the potential to be “one of the best drug launches of all time,” the Jefferies team added.
Still, RevMed leadership’s more cautious tone may have impacted confidence in the company’s stock, which was trading down more than 5% late Thursday morning.
Rasonque has been much-ballyhooed ever since the drug’s data earned a standing ovation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in May, showing that it doubled progression-free survival following an earlier—and similarly impressive—overall survival victory in phase 3.
With the green light, RevMed has also validated the broader RAS inhibition pathway, which had long been thought undruggable. The RAS protein is vital for the survival of many cancers, including most pancreatic cancers.
Elsewhere, RevMed is also gearing up to launch Rasonque in the European Union, where it won the blessing of the European Medicines Agency in October.
As the company waits on formal sign-off from the European Commission, launch prep and country-by-country reimbursement work is ongoing, Mancini said on RevMed’s call.
While actual launch timing in Europe will depend on that Commission verdict and country-specific access accords, Mancini stressed that RevMed expects to be ready to launch as soon as its able overseas. The company is also working toward a swift rollout in Japan as Rasonque undergoes regulatory review there as well.