COYA — Q2 2026 Financial Report Analysis

COYA 302's ALS trial is now the business: R&D up 37%, cash guided to outlast the 2027 readout

Coya Therapeutics is a Houston-based clinical-stage biotech: it has no products on sale and earns no sales revenue. Its lead drug, COYA 302, combines a low dose of interleukin-2 (a signalling protein that boosts regulatory T cells, the immune cells that calm inflammation) with CTLA4-Ig, another immune-dampening drug. The bet is that turning down inflammation in the nervous system can slow amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the fatal motor-neuron disease. In the quarter to June 30, 2026, Coya lost $6.6 million, up from $6.1 million a year earlier, because research spending rose 37% to $5.0 million as its ALSTARS trial of COYA 302 enrolled patients. A $0.65 million drop in overhead costs absorbed part of that. The company ended June with $43.2 million in cash and no debt.

At a glance

• $43.2 million cash, no debt. Management says it lasts "into the second half of 2027", after the ALS trial's main results, now expected in early Q2 2027. A failed trial would not, by itself, leave the company out of money.
• $7.4 million of cash used by operations in Q2, up from $5.8 million a year earlier. At that pace the cash covers roughly six more quarters, which matches management's runway guidance.
• 23.5 million shares outstanding, up 40% in a year. Losses per share fell from $0.36 to $0.28 only because the loss was split over more shares after two stock sales. The company also has a $30 million program to sell more stock, none of it used yet.

The quarter in numbers

Quarterly operating cash use is the six-month figure in this 10-Q minus the first-quarter figure in the Q1 10-Q ($13.58M - $6.21M this year; $8.60M - $2.83M last year). For the first half, the net loss was $13.8 million against $13.4 million, and cash used in operations was $13.6 million against $8.6 million.

Where the money went

Research and development. Spending rose $1.37 million. According to the filing, $1.1 million of that came from "the advancement of the COYA 302 ALS Phase 2 clinical trial", plus $0.4 million more for internal R&D staff, partly offset by $0.2 million less for sponsored research at Houston Methodist. The breakdown shows how concentrated the company is:

The two years aren't split the same way. COYA 302 counted as "preclinical" until the FDA cleared its ALS trial application in August 2025, so last year's $2.49M in the 300 Series line is mostly the same program at an earlier stage. Comparing like with like, external spending on the 300-Series drugs rose from $2.49M to $3.54M (+42%).

Overhead. General and administrative costs fell $0.65 million. The filing attributes this to $0.4 million less in professional services and $0.2 million less in employee pay, including lower stock-based compensation. This only holds for the quarter. For the six months, G&A rose to $6.0 million from $5.6 million because of a one-time $1.0 million non-cash charge in Q1. That charge came from extending the stock options of the former Executive Chairman, who resigned effective April 1, 2026.

Revenue isn't new money. The $0.24 million of "collaboration revenue" is not new cash. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, which holds rights to sell COYA 302 for ALS in the US, Canada, the EU and the UK, paid Coya in earlier years: a $7.5 million upfront fee in January 2024, a $3.9 million one-time payment in June 2024, and $8.4 million in milestones in August and December 2025. Part of that money is booked as revenue bit by bit as Coya does the agreed trial work. $1.75 million is still waiting to be booked this way, $1.2 million of it within a year. Interest on the cash pile ($0.41 million in other income) actually brought in more than the revenue line did.

What the headline numbers hide

• Cash use rose faster than the loss. Six-month operating cash outflow was $13.6 million, almost exactly the $13.8 million net loss. A year ago, $8.6 million of cash covered a $13.4 million loss. The difference is timing, not new costs. In H1 2025, a $2.3 million fall in prepaid expenses and a $1.5 million rise in unpaid bills (accrued expenses) flattered cash flow. This year went the other way: accrued payroll was paid down from $1.7 million to $0.6 million, and prepaid R&D grew from $2.3 million to $3.3 million. Last year's $8.6 million understated the real cost of running the company. This year's figure is closer to it.
• About $3.1 million of the H1 loss was stock-based pay, which costs no cash ($0.9 million in Q2). Without it, the Q2 cash-relevant loss was roughly $5.7 million. That cost is paid instead by existing shareholders, whose stake gets diluted. With 3.89 million options and 0.82 million warrants outstanding, potential dilution is about 20% of today's share count. Only 60,382 shares are left in the equity plan, so expect a request to shareholders for more.
• The better loss per share comes from dilution, not progress. The quarterly loss grew 8.9%, but the weighted share count grew 40% (23.46M vs 16.72M). Those shares came from an October 2025 offering and a January 2026 private placement of 2.52 million shares at $4.40 (about $11.1 million gross). That is why loss per share "improved" from $0.36 to $0.28.
• One investing outflow is old business. The $0.9 million paid in Q1 for in-process R&D assets was for costs incurred in 2025, according to the Q1 10-Q, so it doesn't add to this year's spending rate. Separately, Coya owed Dr. Reddy's $0.3 million at June 30 as a milestone payment for the FDA's clearance of a COYA 302 trial in frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
• Going concern: no warning. A going-concern warning is a formal statement that a company may run out of money within 12 months. Management concluded there is no substantial doubt, because the $43.2 million covers at least a year from the filing date. It also states plainly that it "will need to secure additional funding" after that. The company has no credit line or committed funding.

Takeaway: Coya's numbers now depend on one event: the topline (main) results of the 120-patient ALSTARS trial, expected in early Q2 2027. The company has funded itself to just past that date, with around six quarters of cash at the current spending rate and a $30 million stock-sale program in reserve. So the cash position is acceptable for a company this size. The main risk is the trial. A positive result opens the door to Dr. Reddy's milestone payments (up to about $40 million in development milestones and $677 million in sales milestones under the agreement). A negative one would leave a cash pile that runs out in late 2027 and a share price that makes new funding expensive.

What happens next

• ALSTARS trial (ALS). The company's 8-K filings after the quarter show the trial reached its 100th patient on September 15 and full enrollment of 120 on October 5, 2026. Topline results from the 24-week double-blind phase are expected in early Q2 2027. The main measure is the change in the ALSFRS-R score, a standard 48-point rating of daily function in ALS patients, against placebo. In ALS, slowing that decline at all would matter, because current treatments only slow it modestly. The FDA granted COYA 302 Fast Track designation for ALS on May 11, 2026. That allows more frequent FDA contact and a faster review process, but it does not mean the drug works. Later filings describe the study as Phase 2/3, while the 10-Q calls it Phase 2.
• An open-label extension starting November 2026, and FTD pushed back. On October 14, Coya said patients who complete 48 weeks can keep taking COYA 302 in an open-label extension, in which everyone knows they are on the drug. To focus money on ALS, it moved the planned Phase 2 trial in frontotemporal dementia from the second half of 2026 to 2027. Runway guidance ("into the second half of 2027") was unchanged. Expect R&D to stay at or above the current $5 million-a-quarter rate as the extension adds patients-on-drug costs.
• Funding. The $30 million at-the-market program with Leerink Partners lets Coya sell shares into the market whenever it chooses. Any use of it before the readout would extend runway at the cost of more dilution. Watch the Q3 10-Q (due around mid-November 2026) for ATM sales and whether quarterly cash use moves above $7-8 million.

Our view: the financials here say little about the company's value, which rests on the trial result. They do show the company can reach the readout without an emergency raise, which many small biotechs can't. Further dilution is still likely either way.