Earnings Call Insights: ALX Oncology (ALXO) Q1 2026 Management view "Most notably, we are very excited to share with you the data set that was presented yesterday in Munich at ESMO Breast 2026 from the analysis of our trial evaluating evorpacept and zanidatamab, which clearly showed again that CD47 expression is a key predictive biomarker for increasing durable clinical response in heavily pretrea...
Earnings Call Insights: ALX Oncology (ALXO) Q1 2026 Management view "Most notably, we are very excited to share with you the data set that was presented yesterday in Munich at ESMO Breast 2026 from the analysis of our trial evaluating evorpacept and zanidatamab, which clearly showed again that CD47 expression is a key predictive biomarker for increasing durable clinical response in heavily pretreated HER2-positive patients." (CEO & Director Jason Lettmann) "Here, we observed that all patients who were confirmed HER2-positive and CD47 high achieved a response, including one complete response." (CEO Lettmann) "We also yet again saw the durability that one hopes to see with an IO mechanism with a median duration of response of 20 months and a median PFS of 22 months." (CEO Lettmann) "We added Jeff Knight, who is now our Chief Development and Chief Operating Officer, which really further strengthens our leadership team." (CEO Lettmann) "Our clinical safety database is now more than 800 evorpacept-treated patients." (Chief Medical Officer Barbara Klencke) "We estimate that there are approximately 20,000 addressable patients who are HER2-positive and overexpress CD47, representing a $2 billion to $4 billion market opportunity in the United States, the 5 major European markets and Japan." (CMO Klencke) "As we advance the enrollment and dose escalation in this trial, we are now shifting from providing granular updates to reporting initial safety data in the second half of 2026." (CMO Klencke) No CFO prepared remarks were included in this transcript. Outlook "Overall, clinical time lines remain on track as we're expected to read out 80 patients mid next year." (CEO Lettmann) "Slide 31 shows our ongoing ASPEN-09 study in the HER2-positive breast cancer setting." (CMO Klencke) "This is going to -- this is a single-arm study that will enroll up to 120 patients and has a primary endpoint of response rate in the subset of patients who overexpress CD47." (CMO Klencke) "We're makin...
From Naomi Ishiguro to Jess Atwood Gibson, more children of high profile writers are becoming authors themselves. Parents and their literary offspring discuss the pressures of measuring up Martin Amis liked to observe that the unusual position he and Kingsley Amis held – father-and-son novelists – was a historical anomaly, a “literary curiosity”. But it was not unique: Alexandre Dumas père and fil...
From Naomi Ishiguro to Jess Atwood Gibson, more children of high profile writers are becoming authors themselves. Parents and their literary offspring discuss the pressures of measuring up Martin Amis liked to observe that the unusual position he and Kingsley Amis held – father-and-son novelists – was a historical anomaly, a “literary curiosity”. But it was not unique: Alexandre Dumas père and fils, Fanny and Anthony Trollope, and Arthur and Evelyn Waugh had all come before them. And if Amis’s assertion wasn’t true then, it’s even less true now. In recent years, increasing numbers of children of novelists have become writers themselves, and this year sees a particularly rich batch. Kazuo Ishiguro’s daughter, Naomi, publishes the first in her new fantasy series this month. Margaret Atwood’s daughter Jess Gibson published her fiction debut this spring, and earlier this year Patrick Charnley, son of the poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, published his first novel to wide acclaim. Continue reading...
In record 40C heat on 19 July 2022, 18 homes were lost in village of Wennington – a signal for firefighters to adapt, but UK response remains fragmented When neighbours urged Lynn Sabberton and her partner, Terry, to flee from their home in Wennington one day in 2022, the couple weren’t sure they should bother. A fire was burning in their village, on the eastern edge of London, but Terry thought i...
In record 40C heat on 19 July 2022, 18 homes were lost in village of Wennington – a signal for firefighters to adapt, but UK response remains fragmented When neighbours urged Lynn Sabberton and her partner, Terry, to flee from their home in Wennington one day in 2022, the couple weren’t sure they should bother. A fire was burning in their village, on the eastern edge of London, but Terry thought it was too far away to be a problem. Struggling with a lung disease made worse by the record 40C heat that day, 19 July , he was wearing only his underwear and refused to budge from his armchair. Lynn remembers two police officers kicking open their front door and shouting that it was time to go. Lynn pleaded to be allowed to get Terry some clothes and was bundled upstairs to find them. Could she grab some papers? No. Her purse? No. Her cat, Jack? Also no. Continue reading...
SweetBunFactory/iStock via Getty Images Introduction Kulicke & Soffa ( KLIC ) is a name we have been closely following over the last several quarters and one thing we have been waiting for is a clean report that confirms the advanced packaging business is actually inflecting. We think that the next leg of upside for capital equipment vendors will come from advanced packaging, heterogeneous integra...
SweetBunFactory/iStock via Getty Images Introduction Kulicke & Soffa ( KLIC ) is a name we have been closely following over the last several quarters and one thing we have been waiting for is a clean report that confirms the advanced packaging business is actually inflecting. We think that the next leg of upside for capital equipment vendors will come from advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration and the data center capacity build-out. Q2 results show a confirmation of that thesis we have seen for KLIC in this cycle. KLIC Price Action (Seeking Alpha) Going into the earnings, the stock had rallied meaningfully and the question on our minds was whether the rally was being front-run by sentiment. Q2 gave us the answer. Revenue of $242.6M came in up 21.5% sequentially, gross margin held above 49%, and Q3 was guided to $310M (28% sequential growth). Management also called out improved visibility through fiscal 2026 plus a slight sequential improvement into Q4. In our view, this is a materially different setup than the last two quarters, with the TCB ramp, Advanced Solutions capacity expansion, and power semiconductor exposure all supporting a more confident Buy thesis. Strong Q2 The most important data point of Q2 is that revenue accelerated sharply while gross margin held above 49%. Revenue of $242.6M was up 21.5% sequentially and nearly 50% YoY, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.79 beat by approximately $0.12. The 2,440 bps of YoY gross margin expansion is the kind of move you only see at the very early innings of a cyclical turn, and Non-GAAP operating margin improved sharply to 19.1%, compared with a negative 16.9% in the year-ago quarter. KLIC Income Statement (Q2 Earnings slide) On the segment side, General Semi was the main driver, with revenue rising 19.4% sequentially to $148.9M, supported by both Ball Bonding and Advanced Solutions on capacity and technology requirements. Memory came in at $31.3M (up 93% sequentially) driven by NAND/eSSD demand. Auto and Industrial i...
A Chinese woman who accused a famous chain of milk tea shops of planting mercury in her drink was later found to be the target of poisoning by her boyfriend. The woman, surnamed Zhang, from central China’s Anhui province, initially complained online that a Chagee shop laced her drink with mercury granules. Zhang said her boyfriend bought the drink for her on April 27. The first few sips were fine,...
A Chinese woman who accused a famous chain of milk tea shops of planting mercury in her drink was later found to be the target of poisoning by her boyfriend. The woman, surnamed Zhang, from central China’s Anhui province, initially complained online that a Chagee shop laced her drink with mercury granules. Zhang said her boyfriend bought the drink for her on April 27. The first few sips were fine, but later she felt little granules in her sips that “did not taste like tapioca bubbles”. She...
Medley of Photography/iStock via Getty Images Ten years ago, in 2016, it was Great Britain that fired the opening salvo in what would come to be recorded as a very disruptive year in global politics. The decision to leave the European Union took place that summer as British citizens stuck it to the man – if only by a couple of percentage points – and buckled in for whatever might or might not happ...
Medley of Photography/iStock via Getty Images Ten years ago, in 2016, it was Great Britain that fired the opening salvo in what would come to be recorded as a very disruptive year in global politics. The decision to leave the European Union took place that summer as British citizens stuck it to the man – if only by a couple of percentage points – and buckled in for whatever might or might not happen next. Dead and Buried Here we go again. Election results for English council seats and the parliaments of Scotland and Wales are still being tallied, but enough of the vote has been counted so far to say that the results are a flat-out disaster for the two parties – Labor and the Conservatives (Tories) – that have dominated UK politics for the entirety of the postwar system. To the right of the Conservatives stands the Reform Party, an ethno-populist movement that is swallowing up the lion’s share of the votes being hemorrhaged by Labor and the Tories. As of this writing, with 63 of 136 councils determined, Reform has seen a net gain of 515 council seats, while Labor is facing a net loss of 288 and the Conservatives a net loss of 204. The Green Party, a left-leaning progressive movement, is also adding seats. Its leader, Zack Polanski, pronounced the two-party system “dead and buried” after the Greens won a crucial mayoral contest in Hackney, a borough in Inner London. The Greens are also expected to pick up their first constituency seats in Scotland, where the make-up of parliament is at stake, with the overall winner expected to be the Scottish National Party, again displacing Labor. Similarly in Wales, the 30-year rule of Labor is set to end with just 10 or so of the 60 parliamentary seats with the national (Welsh) Plaid Cymru Party and Reform picking up much of the rest. Relics of a Bygone Order We decided to spend some time talking about the UK elections this week because we see this as part and parcel of the same phenomenon we were talking about last week, namely, ...