Cytokinetics Posts First Full MYQORZO Quarter as Armistice Capital Adds to Its Position
August 28, 2026 5:29 pm
Cytokinetics booked its first full quarter of MYQORZO sales on Aug. 6. Armistice Capital used the same three months to raise its stake in the company, at a time when several biopharma-focused hedge funds were absorbing losses on concentrated bets elsewhere in the industry.
MYQORZO’s First Full Quarter
Cytokinetics reported $25.3 million in net product revenue from MYQORZO, its therapy for symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in the three months ended June 30. The United States accounted for $23 million of that total and Europe for $2.3 million, a figure inflated by initial stocking for the German launch rather than by underlying demand. More than 700 health care providers had prescribed the drug by quarter’s end, and roughly 1,500 patients had received it, with more than 80 percent of them still on therapy.
The drug, known chemically as aficamten, has also launched in the United Kingdom and China since its Dec. 19, 2025, U.S. approval, and regulators in Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are reviewing it. Cytokinetics has filed 10 health technology assessment packages with European regulators, with additional launches planned in more than five markets before mid-2027. Total company revenue fell to $28.6 million from $66.8 million a year earlier, a decline tied to a drop in collaboration payments rather than to the commercial launch itself. Chief Executive Robert Blum said, “Our second quarter results demonstrate commercial launch momentum for MYQORZO alongside continued excellence for our development pipeline.”
From SEQUOIA-HCM to a Second Indication
The approval rested on SEQUOIA-HCM, the Phase 3 trial in obstructive HCM. Over 24 weeks, patients on aficamten gained 1.8 mL/kg/min in peak oxygen uptake against no change on placebo, a difference significant at p=.000002. Serious adverse events occurred in 5.6 percent of the aficamten group against 9.3 percent on placebo, and 3.5 percent of aficamten patients saw their left ventricular ejection fraction drop below 50 percent, against 0.7 percent on placebo.
Cytokinetics is now working to extend that approval to a second, larger patient group. The company said it expects to submit a supplemental new drug application for non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in the fourth quarter of 2026, drawing on results from the Phase 3 ACACIA-HCM trial. Non-obstructive HCM has no FDA-approved therapy aimed at the hypercontractility that drives it.
ACACIA-HCM tested aficamten against placebo in 516 patients and met both dual primary endpoints at Week 36, according to topline results Cytokinetics released in May. Patients on aficamten gained 11.4 points on the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire Clinical Summary Score against 8.4 points for placebo, a 3.0-point difference significant at p=0.021. Peak oxygen uptake rose 0.64 mL/kg/min on aficamten against a 0.03 mL/kg/min decline on placebo, a difference significant at p=0.003. Secondary endpoints, including NYHA functional class and the biomarker NT-proBNP, cleared significance at p<0.001.
The safety profile in this second population looks different from the first. Twenty-seven aficamten patients in ACACIA-HCM, 10 percent of that arm, saw LVEF drop below 50 percent, against two patients, or 1 percent, on placebo, a higher rate than the 3.5 percent seen in the obstructive population under SEQUOIA-HCM. Two aficamten patients in ACACIA-HCM had serious heart failure events tied to that drop. Dr. Fady I. Malik, Cytokinetics’ executive vice president of research and development, called the trial “the first clinical trial to demonstrate statistically significant improvements in exercise capacity and symptom burden in patients with non-obstructive HCM.”
Munich and the Regulatory Calendar
Full ACACIA-HCM results reach a wider clinical audience on Aug. 28, when Dr. Ahmad Masri of Oregon Health & Science University presents the data in a Hot Line session at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich. Two additional aficamten studies follow the next day, and Cytokinetics will hold an investor event after the Hot Line session to walk analysts through the results.
Cytokinetics ended June with $1.7 billion in cash and investments, up from $1.1 billion three months earlier after a stock offering that raised $760.1 million in net proceeds. The company raised its full-year forecast for combined research, development and administrative spending to a range of $860 million to $890 million.
Where Institutional Money Sits
Armistice Capital increased its equity position in Cytokinetics to 1.2 million shares in the second quarter, a 57 percent increase valued at roughly $102.3 million. The fund also held call options covering 1.53 million shares, down 10 percent from the prior quarter, and closed out a put option position it had carried earlier in the year. Armistice manages $3.61 billion across 323 positions, according to its most recent quarterly filing.
Other holders on Cytokinetics’ shareholder register moved in different directions than Armistice. T. Rowe Price Investment Management reported 17.7 million shares, 14.5 percent of the company, in a Feb. 17 filing, a position that had fallen 7.23 percent from the prior filing. Wellington Management reported 7.12 million shares, or 5.12 percent, as of June 30. Vanguard held 6.12 million shares, or 5.21 percent, up 11.46 percent in an Aug. 13 filing; State Street held 5.62 million shares, or 4.70 percent, down 4.68 percent as of a Nov. 10, 2025, filing. BlackRock also ranks among the company’s largest shareholders.
A Mixed Year for Biopharma-Focused Funds
Armistice’s addition came as several hedge funds that specialize in biopharma names took losses tied to concentrated bets elsewhere in the industry. Perceptive Advisors, which gained 82 percent in 2025, fell 2.53 percent in January 2026 after a 19 percent drop in Travere Therapeutics. RTW Investments lost 6 percent the same month after Madrigal Pharmaceuticals declined 16 percent, and Soleus Capital fell 4.9 percent when Beta Bionics lost more than half its value following a weak quarterly report.
Janus Henderson strategists have described 2026 as a “catalyst-rich year” for the sector, pointing to a denser pipeline of trial readouts and a policy backdrop that has “turned more constructive” after 2025’s regulatory uncertainty. Cytokinetics’ Munich presentation and fourth-quarter filing plan sit inside that same calendar of clinical and regulatory events that fund managers across the industry are positioning around this year.
The company’s near-term path runs through Munich and the fourth-quarter filing decision, with the non-obstructive HCM population larger than the one MYQORZO already serves.
