The market is starting to catch on to the worst-kept secret in the coverage ecosystem: Coherus Oncology is existentially low on cash. Loqtorzi won't be able to bail it out anytime soon either.

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The aggressive drug developer ended March 2026 with $167 million in cash. While that doesn't seem too bad, investors should realize the cash balance is actually $105.9 million after subtracting the Udenyca TSA payables owed to Intas Pharma. The math won't get any more favorable considering the business burned $38 million in cash from operations in Q1.

Making matters worse, almost every external event has gone against Coherus recently. Both STORM Therapeutics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals decided to ditch combination studies with toripalimab.

Meanwhile, recent data readouts from the competitive landscape sure make it seem like CCR8 is going to be the latest immuno-oncology dud. Amgen announced its CCR8 inhibitor AMG-355 drove an objective response rate (ORR) of 1.4% as a monotherapy and 3.3% when combined with Keytruda. Gilead Sciences said denikitug achieved a monotherapy ORR of 8%. Yikes.

More concerning, the median patient who responded to denikitug had already received six (6) prior treatments. That's a big problem. The market for CCR8 inhibitors is going to be pathetically small if they only drive responses as seventh-line (7L) treatment options.

These data aren't out of line with the mechanism of action for CCR8 inhibition, which allows treatment-resistant tumors to be treated again. But investors were hoping for, you know, activity as a 3L or 4L treatment option. Investors shouldn't expect tagmokitug to perform meaningfully better just because it's more selective either.

The last hope investors have is that the Amgens and Gileads of the world are running large basket studies evaluating many tumor types, including some questionable ones. Coherus is also running a large basket study, but focusing on tumor types expected to respond to CCR8 inhibition and reading out the data from each separately. Head and neck cancer, as well as gastric cancer and late-line colon cancer, should see more responses. Should.

That means the fate of Coherus as an investment likely rests on the IL-27 inhibitor casdozokitug. More specifically, the casdozokitug triplet including toripalimab (PD-1) and Avastin (VEGF) in hepatocellular carcinoma ("liver cancer"). Preliminary phase 2 data are expected in mid-2026, but the market-moving data might not arrive until mid-2027 – too long to save the day.

It could still work out. A doublet containing Roche's PD-1 inhibitor Tecentriq and Avastin is the standard of care in HCC, with the Tecentriq component generating over $1 billion in annual sales. If casdozokitug shows promise on tolerability and improves responses, then larger companies could find the potential to own multiple pieces of a standard-of-care-resetting triplet – the PD-1 inhibitor (toripalimab) and casdozokitug – an attractive possibility.

If shares pop on data readouts, then it might not last long. Coherus needs to issue tens of millions of shares to keep the lights on.