{
  "@context": "https://orbyd.app/schemas/dossier.v1.json",
  "ticker": "CORT",
  "name": "Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated",
  "url": "https://orbyd.app/dossiers/CORT/",
  "json_url": "https://orbyd.app/dossiers/CORT.json",
  "status": "DORMANT",
  "current_conviction": "LOW",
  "graded_conviction": "LOW",
  "archetype": {
    "code": "a5",
    "n": 5
  },
  "current_thesis": "Lifyorli oncology launch (approved 2026-03-25, NCCN preferred) re-accelerated the tape to fresh 52-week highs near $92, and the 2026-06-17 Cushing's relacorilant resubmission (~Dec PDUFA) adds second-approval optionality. But a fresh entry is +56% above the 50-day into an ~2026-08-05 Q2 print the run already front-ran — a probe or pullback buy at 228x, not a chase.",
  "invalidation_trigger": "A weekly close below $80 loses the late-June breakout shelf and rising 20-EMA that define this leg; a refuse-to-file or second CRL on the 2026-06-17 Cushing's resubmission, or a Q2 revenue miss around 2026-08-05, confirms the break.",
  "catalyst_date": "2026-12-17",
  "outcome": "PLAYED_OUT",
  "outcome_date": "2026-07-21",
  "invalidation_fired": false,
  "themes": [
    "rare-disease-gene-therapy",
    "oncology-immunology",
    "binary-catalyst-biotech"
  ],
  "tags": [],
  "sources": [],
  "notes": [
    "Litigation is live: a securities class action plus an amended former-employee complaint (2026-06-03) produce recurring headline risk, typically on strength.",
    "Growth is now Lifyorli-dependent; the Korlym plus authorized-generic base went $194.4M (Q2 2025) to $208.6M (Q2 2026) and faces generic dynamics.",
    "Sell-side dispersion is unusually wide: Wolfe Underperform PT $50 (2026-07-27) against Piper Sandler and HC Wainwright PT $165 (2026-07-30).",
    "Institutional and hedge-fund ownership is reported at 93.61% (MarketBeat, August 2026), so float rotation amplifies moves in both directions."
  ],
  "body_markdown": "## Current Thesis\nThe July framing was that the run had front-run its own print. The print arrived a week earlier than the placeholder date — 2026-07-29 — and it settled the question in the bulls' favour. Q2 revenue was $256.1M against a $219.99M consensus, diluted EPS $0.36 against a $(0.00) estimate, net income $43.0M versus $35.1M a year earlier, and management took FY2026 guidance to $1.1–1.2B from $950M–$1.05B while the street sat at $1.008B. Lifyorli (relacorilant + nab-paclitaxel) contributed $47.6M in its first quarter of availability with more than 1,300 patients started since the 2026-03-25 approval. Shares moved +21.95% after hours on the release and the sell-side repriced within 24 hours. What has changed since the last note is that the oncology ramp is now a reported number rather than an assumption, and the Q1 deceleration scare ($164.9M, +4.9% YoY, a $31.8M net loss) reads as launch-quarter noise. What has not changed is the shape of the calendar: the next company-specific binary is the 2026-12-17 PDUFA for relacorilant in hypercortisolism, roughly four months out, and the stock enters that gap 6.4% below a 52-week high it set after the print.\n\n## Bull Case\n- **Q2 2026 (2026-07-29) beat on both lines.** Revenue $256.1M, +32% YoY from $194.4M; diluted EPS $0.36 vs a $(0.00) consensus; net income $43.0M vs $35.1M in Q2 2025.\n- **The launch printed a real number.** Lifyorli revenue $47.6M in its first quarter of availability; over 1,300 patients started treatment since the 2026-03-25 FDA approval. NCCN listed the regimen as preferred in April 2026.\n- **Guidance raised by more than the beat.** FY2026 revenue guide lifted to $1.1–1.2B from $950M–$1.05B (2026-07-29), against a $1.008B consensus — the second raise of the year after the 2026-04-30 lift.\n- **The endocrine base still grows.** Korlym and authorized-generic revenue $208.6M in Q2 2026 versus $194.4M in Q2 2025, so the oncology ramp is additive rather than substitutive.\n- **Second approval is dated.** The Cushing's NDA, physically resubmitted 2026-06-17, carries a PDUFA target action date of 2026-12-17. No new trials were required; the resubmission is additional analyses of the original dataset.\n- **Funded through the decision.** Cash and investments $544.6M at 2026-06-30, up from $515.4M at 2026-03-31 — the company is self-funding the launch, with no financing overhang disclosed into the PDUFA.\n- **Targets repriced above spot.** Piper Sandler Overweight, PT raised to $165 from $88 (2026-07-30); HC Wainwright Buy, PT $165 (2026-07-30); Canaccord Genuity Buy, PT $161 (2026-07-30, after a $150 mark on 2026-07-29).\n\n## Bear Case\n- **A four-month catalyst vacuum.** Between the 2026-07-29 print and the 2026-12-17 PDUFA there is no company-confirmed binary. BELLA Part A, the ROSELLA EU MAA decision and the MONARCH Phase 2b MASH readout are all guided only to \"end of 2026\".\n- **Dispersion is extreme and one side is loud.** Wolfe Research downgraded to Underperform with a $50 price target on 2026-07-27, two days before the beat. The spread from $50 to $165 is a 3.3x range on the same asset; the consensus 12-month target across five brokerages is quoted at $134.50 (MarketBeat, August 2026).\n- **The move is large and recent.** 3-month return +111.9% into the 2026-08-07 close of $110.77. A gap-up of that size leaves no intervening structure between the pre-print shelf near $92 and current levels.\n- **Insider supply into strength.** Joseph Douglas Lyon sold 1,540 shares at an average $114.16 on 2026-08-03, a 21.89% reduction of the reported holding, after 5,000 shares at $65.00 on 2026-05-27. A Form 144 proposed sale was filed 2026-07-07 near the prior highs.\n- **Litigation is unresolved.** A securities class action and an amended former-employee complaint (2026-06-03) remain live and produce headline risk that clusters on strength.\n- **The Cushing's file already failed once.** The original NDA drew a Complete Response Letter; the December decision is a re-run of a review that has previously gone against the company.\n\n## Setup & Price Structure\n- Last completed daily close $110.77 (2026-08-07); 52-week high $118.32, so 6.4% below it; RSI(14) 64.8 — elevated but not at the extreme the July note flagged.\n- The defining structure is the 2026-07-30 gap. Shares traded near $92 through mid-July; the +21.95% after-hours reaction on 2026-07-29 opened a window that has not been revisited. That $92 shelf is the first level with real prior trade beneath it.\n- Life-cycle: **ACCELERATING**. The dating is specific — a beat-and-raise on 2026-07-29, three price-target increases to $150–$165 on 2026-07-30, a first-ever Lifyorli revenue line, and a new 52-week high established after the print. This is the second acceleration leg of 2026, following the 2026-05-29 ASCO overall-survival release.\n- Crowding observables, stated without a verdict: institutional and hedge-fund ownership reported at 93.61%; retail-facing coverage clustered on 2026-07-30 across at least four Benzinga items; insider selling at $114.16 within four sessions of the high; spot now sits below all three post-print targets, inverting the July condition when price traded above the $88.83 consensus.\n- What would date a flip to MATURING: several weeks of failure to exceed $118.32 while coverage volume stays high, or a Q3 print showing Lifyorli sequential growth stalling near the $47.6M base.\n\n## Catalyst Calendar (next 30 days)\n- **No company-confirmed binary falls between 2026-08-08 and 2026-09-07.** The 10-Q for Q2 followed the 2026-07-29 release; guidance has just been reset.\n- ~2026-09-15 (est.) — ESMO Congress 2026 abstract titles typically publish in mid-September; any relacorilant ovarian-cancer abstract would be the first new clinical datapoint since ASCO on 2026-05-29. Unconfirmed.\n- ~2026-11-04 (est.) — Q3 2026 print. The observable is whether Lifyorli exceeds $47.6M sequentially and whether the $1.1–1.2B FY guide is raised a third time or trimmed.\n- 2026-12-17 — PDUFA target action date, relacorilant for hypercortisolism. The single largest dated re-rating lever.\n- ~2026-12-31 (est.) — BELLA Part A topline, ROSELLA EU MAA decision, MONARCH Phase 2b MASH readout, all guided to \"end of 2026\" on the Q2 call.\n\n## What Would Change Our Mind\nThe gap created on 2026-07-30 is the whole structure; nothing else has been built since. Losing it removes the evidence that the launch quarter changed the equity's range, and the gradeable version of that is a weekly close below $92 — the shelf where shares traded before the print. A secondary confirmation would be the 2026-12-17 PDUFA passing without an approval, since the Cushing's indication carries the second-product optionality that the current multiple embeds and this file has already drawn one Complete Response Letter. On the fundamental side, the number to watch is Lifyorli's sequential line: a Q3 print near or below $47.6M, or any trim to the $1.1–1.2B FY guide, would say the 1,300-patient start figure was front-loaded trialling rather than durable adoption. A move above $118.32 on continued volume, by contrast, would extend the accelerating read rather than resolve it.\n\n## Correlation Notes\n- The name trades on its own calendar. The dated moves of 2026 — 2026-03-25 approval, 2026-05-29 ROSELLA overall-survival data (+15.4%), 2026-06-17 resubmission, 2026-07-29 print (+21.95% after hours) — are all company-specific. On 2026-07-30 the broad tape's driver was Microsoft's 43% cloud growth reviving semis; the biotech move that day was unrelated to it.\n- Sector beta still applies through XBI/IBB flows, and the 2026-07-30 session also carried a 19-year high in 30-year yields. A profitable, cash-generative biotech with $544.6M on the balance sheet at 2026-06-30 is less exposed to that channel than pre-revenue peers, but not insulated from it.\n- There is no clean listed comparable for selective cortisol modulation; correlation to other Cushing's-adjacent names is event-driven rather than persistent, so read-through from peer FDA outcomes should be treated as weak evidence.",
  "first_seen": "2026-04-20",
  "last_analyzed": "2026-08-08T14:40:14+00:00",
  "last_synthesized": "2026-08-08",
  "last_update_source": "watchlist_research",
  "license": "Content © orbyd. Cite the canonical URL."
}