CORT — Q2 2026 Financial Report Analysis

A second product arrives, and the company is profitable again

Corcept Therapeutics spent more than a decade as a one-drug company: almost all of its sales came from Korlym, a pill for Cushing's syndrome (a disease caused by too much of the stress hormone cortisol). In the second quarter of 2026 that changed. Lifyorli (relacorilant), approved by the FDA in March for a hard-to-treat form of ovarian cancer and launched in April, brought in $47.6 million in its first quarter on sale. Together with $208.6 million from Korlym and its lower-priced "authorized generic" copy, total revenue rose 32% to $256.1 million, and the company swung back to a profit after a $31.8 million loss in the first quarter. Management raised its 2026 revenue forecast for the second time this year, to $1.1–1.2 billion.

At a glance

• $47.6M from Lifyorli in its first quarter — 18.6% of total revenue. Korlym is no longer the only source of income, though it still supplies 81% of sales.
• Operating margin of 16.1%, up from 13.7% — operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. It improved even though sales and marketing spending jumped 51%, because revenue grew faster.
• 2026 revenue guidance raised to $1.1–1.2 billion (from $950–1,050 million in April). Hitting it requires second-half revenue of roughly $680–780 million — about $340–390 million a quarter, versus $256 million in Q2.

The numbers

Source: Q2 2026 Form 10-Q (quarter ended June 30, 2026) and the July 29, 2026 earnings release.

What drove revenue

Korlym grew 7.3%, mostly from more patients. The 10-Q says higher sales volume accounted for 76.1% of the $14.2 million increase. The rest came from a price increase taken in August 2025 and better insurer reimbursement at Curant, the specialty pharmacy that took over distribution in early 2026 — partly offset by more patients taking the authorized generic, which sells at a lower price. Over the first half, the average price actually fell 2.1% because of that generic mix. Management says new prescriptions hit another record, which it attributes to its CATALYST and MOMENTUM studies: they found that 23.8% of patients with hard-to-control type 2 diabetes and 27.3% of patients with resistant high blood pressure had hidden excess cortisol — a much larger potential patient pool than doctors traditionally assumed.

Lifyorli started fast. Approved in March alongside the chemotherapy drug nab-paclitaxel for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (cancer that has come back after standard platinum-based chemotherapy stopped working), it was added to the NCCN treatment guidelines as a "preferred regimen" in April. The earnings release says more than 1,300 patients had started treatment and that demand accelerated each month. Its approval rests on the ROSELLA trial, in which adding relacorilant to chemotherapy cut the risk of death by 35% (median survival 16.0 months versus 11.9 months).

Where the money went

Spending moved sharply from research to selling. Selling, general and administrative expense rose $53.0 million (+51%) to $156.9 million, which the 10-Q attributes to sales and marketing activity and employee pay to support both the Cushing's business and the Lifyorli launch. It now eats 61% of revenue, versus 53% a year ago.

Research and development fell 10.9% to $53.9 million. The breakdown in the 10-Q shows why: spending on the Cushing's program dropped from $20.3 million to $5.4 million (its trials are finished and the drug is back with the FDA), and metabolic disease spending fell from $11.6 million to $3.9 million, while oncology spending rose 70% to $18.8 million. Part of the drop is also an accounting shift — relacorilant manufactured before approval was booked as R&D, and now that it is a sold product, that cost no longer sits in R&D. Management still expects full-year R&D to be higher in 2026 than in 2025.

What the headline numbers hide

• Cash conversion is weak so far this year. Operating cash flow for the first half was $16.8 million, versus $49.1 million in the first half of 2025, and barely above half-year net income of $11.2 million. Two working-capital items stand out: accounts payable fell $25.9 million (bills paid down) and trade receivables — money owed by customers — rose 29% since December to $76.9 million, faster than sales. Some of that is the nature of Lifyorli: unlike Korlym, which is mostly sold straight to patients, Lifyorli is also sold to specialty distributors, and revenue is booked when the distributor receives the drug, not when a patient takes it. Inventory also rose 34% since December to $32.1 million.
• Lifyorli's first quarter may include some distributor stocking. Because sales to distributors count as revenue on delivery, a launch quarter can include initial shelf-filling orders that won't repeat. The 10-Q doesn't break this out, so Q3 is the first real test of underlying demand.
• Lifyorli's margin is temporarily flattered. The 10-Q states that all Lifyorli product sold in the quarter was made before approval and already expensed as R&D, so it carried almost no cost of sales. Overall cost of sales was just 1.6% of revenue; that ratio should rise once newly manufactured Lifyorli flows through.
• Taxes held back the earnings line. Pre-tax income rose 45% ($45.9M vs $31.7M) and operating income 55%, but net income only 22%, because Q2 2026 had $2.9 million of tax expense while Q2 2025 had a $3.5 million tax benefit. The 10-Q attributes this to smaller stock-option tax deductions this year. The operating improvement is stronger than the EPS figure suggests.
• Buybacks helped EPS only slightly. Diluted share count fell 1.7% (118.4M vs 120.5M), a carryover of the $130.5 million in buybacks done in the first half of 2025. There were no program buybacks in the first half of 2026.
• Stock-based pay is large. Stock compensation was $29.9 million in the quarter, up 56%, and equal to about 70% of net income. It's a real cost to shareholders through dilution even though it isn't paid in cash.
• Korlym's patent fight is lost. On July 10, 2026, the appeals court denied Corcept's request for a rehearing in its patent case against Teva, which has sold a generic Korlym since January 2024. Under earlier settlements, Sun and Hikma may also launch generics while Teva's stays on the market. Korlym's 7% growth is happening despite this, but price pressure is a standing risk to the company's biggest product.
• One pharmacy collects nearly all Korlym revenue. Curant collects payments representing more than 99% of hypercortisolism revenue. The 2025 switch away from the previous pharmacy, which couldn't keep up with demand, shows how much a single vendor can affect sales.

Takeaway: Corcept is no longer a single-product company — Lifyorli supplied 19% of revenue in its first three months — but the raised guidance assumes second-half quarterly revenue about 35–50% above Q2's $256 million, which leans heavily on Lifyorli's ramp holding up after any launch stocking, and on Korlym holding volume and price against generic competition.

What to watch next

• December 17, 2026: FDA decision on relacorilant for Cushing's syndrome. The FDA rejected the first application on December 30, 2025, saying more evidence of effectiveness was needed. Corcept ran additional analyses the FDA requested and resubmitted on June 17. Approval would give the Cushing's business a successor to Korlym that avoids its main side effects (low potassium, and effects on the progesterone receptor) — and, as a new drug, isn't exposed to the existing generics.
• Europe: the European Medicines Agency's decision on relacorilant for ovarian cancer is expected in Q4 2026.
• Trial readouts by year-end: BELLA Part A (relacorilant plus chemotherapy and bevacizumab in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer) and MONARCH (miricorilant in MASH, a fatty-liver disease). Further oncology results — platinum-sensitive ovarian, endometrial, cervical and pancreatic cancers — are expected by the end of 2027.
• ALS timing slipped. The Phase 3 trial of dazucorilant in ALS was described as starting "later this year" in April; the July release says "early next year."
• Cash flow in Q3. With spending on two commercial products and a broad trial program, the company needs revenue to grow into its cost base; Q3 operating cash flow and receivables will show whether the Q2 profit turns into cash.

Our read: the quarter de-risked Corcept's story in an important way — the second product is selling, guidance went up twice, and the balance sheet ($544.6 million in cash and investments, no borrowings, and a stated expectation of funding operations for the next 12 months and beyond without raising money) gives room to keep funding trials. The bigger swing factors for 2027 are the December FDA decision and whether Lifyorli's monthly growth continues once the launch effect fades.