Oruka Therapeutics Doubles Cash to $1.1 Billion, Accelerates Key Trial Readouts
The biotech's $700 million April offering swelled its balance sheet and pushed EVERLAST-B data a quarter ahead of schedule.
Oruka Therapeutics (ORKA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for chronic skin conditions, reported a second-quarter net loss of $50.1 million, widening 76.3% from a year earlier, as it poured capital into a rapidly expanding pipeline.
The quarter was defined less by the loss — expected for a company with no approved products — than by the scale of the balance-sheet transformation behind it. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities surged to $1.1 billion as of June 30, up from roughly $496 million at the end of the prior quarter, after Oruka closed a $700 million upsized public offering in April. Total assets more than doubled over six months to $1.139 billion.
Research and development spending drove the wider loss, climbing 79.6% year-over-year to $43.3 million in the second quarter and 64.5% to $72.4 million for the first half. General and administrative expenses rose 57.8% to $6.9 million. The heavier cost base was partly offset by $8.9 million in interest income, more than double the year-ago figure, as the enlarged cash balance generated investment returns.
The capital is being deployed against an accelerating clinical timeline. EVERLAST-B, a study of ORKA-001 in psoriasis, completed enrollment of 187 subjects ahead of schedule during the quarter, and management moved the Week 16 data readout forward to the fourth quarter of 2026 from a prior expectation of early 2027. A readout from ORCA-SURGE was similarly narrowed to the first quarter of 2027, replacing the broader 2027 guidance the company had previously given.
Oruka also broadened its pipeline. The company initiated ORCA-SURGE, a Phase 2 trial of ORKA-002 in hidradenitis suppurativa, and disclosed ORKA-004, a novel half-life extended monoclonal antibody targeting TL1A, with clinic entry expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and combination studies planned for 2027. Separately, a May amendment to the company's IL-23 license agreement with Paragon Therapeutics expanded rights to all therapeutic areas, adding inflammatory bowel disease, which had previously been excluded.
The balance sheet now carries enough capital to fund operations through a biologics license application filing for ORKA-001, extending the prior guidance that cash would last at least a year beyond 2027 data readouts.
With the April offering following a $180 million private placement in September 2025, Oruka has raised nearly $900 million in less than a year. The cash hoard gives the company room to advance multiple programs simultaneously — a luxury few peers at a similar stage can claim.