Crypto World

Corcept Therapeutics (CORT) Stock Rockets 40% as FDA Greenlights Lifyorli Cancer Treatment

Published

4 weeks ago

25 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Key Takeaways

FDA has authorized Corcept’s Lifyorli (relacorilant) for treating platinum-resistant ovarian, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancer
Shares of CORT rocketed approximately 40% following Wednesday’s announcement
The regulatory review concluded 2.5 months before the target date
Trial results demonstrated median overall survival of 16 months compared to 11.9 months with standard treatment
The company holds a market capitalization near $3.97 billion with analysts targeting $66.80 per share

Corcept Therapeutics received regulatory clearance Wednesday for its cancer treatment relacorilant, marketed as Lifyorli. The authorization covers use alongside nab-paclitaxel for adult patients diagnosed with platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer.

CORT Stock Card
Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated, CORT

Shares experienced a roughly 40% surge following the announcement — marking one of the most significant single-session gains in the biotech sector this year.

The approval applies specifically to individuals who have undergone one to three previous systemic treatment courses, with at least one involving bevacizumab. While targeted, this represents a substantial patient group within a challenging-to-treat cancer category.

Regulators wrapped up their evaluation 2.5 months before the scheduled target date. Such accelerated completions are uncommon and indicate the agency identified compelling evidence in the clinical data.

Clinical Trial Outcomes

The authorization stems from results of the ROSELLA clinical study — a multi-site investigation involving 381 participants. One group received the relacorilant-nab-paclitaxel combination, while the control group received nab-paclitaxel as a monotherapy.

Patients on the combination regimen achieved a median progression-free survival of 6.5 months compared to 5.5 months for those on the single agent. Overall survival reached 16 months with the combination therapy versus 11.9 months for nab-paclitaxel alone.

While the improvements may appear incremental, they represent meaningful progress in a clinical scenario with few effective alternatives. Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer presents substantial treatment challenges, making any survival benefit noteworthy.

Relacorilant functions as a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist. The recommended dosing schedule is 150 mg administered orally once daily for three consecutive days surrounding each nab-paclitaxel infusion.

Nab-paclitaxel is administered at 80 mg/m² intravenously on days 1, 8, and 15 within each 28-day treatment cycle.

Safety Profile and Adverse Events

The drug’s labeling carries contraindications for individuals requiring corticosteroids for critical medical conditions. Frequently reported adverse effects include reduced hemoglobin and neutrophil counts, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, thrombocytopenia, rash, and appetite loss.

Examining the company’s financial performance reveals a nuanced picture. Revenue has expanded 22.3% across the previous three years. Net profit margin stands at 13.09% while gross margin reaches an impressive 98.3%.

Earnings growth, however, declined 33.3% year-over-year. The price-to-earnings multiple sits at 45.49, positioning it toward the elevated range.

The company’s balance sheet appears robust — featuring a current ratio of 2.92 and minimal debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01.

Institutional investors control 72.18% of outstanding shares. The consensus analyst price target of $66.80 implies additional upside potential beyond Wednesday’s substantial rally.

Corcept’s Altman Z-Score of 14.14 reflects strong financial health. The Beneish M-Score of -2.81 indicates low probability of financial statement manipulation.

Prior to Wednesday’s session, the 50-day moving average registered at $37.32, while the RSI reading of 41.26 showed the stock was not in overbought territory before the surge.

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Crypto World

LayerZero Says Kelp Setup Caused Exploit, as Aave Loss Questions Mount

Published

7 minutes ago

20 April 2026

NewsAdmin

LayerZero Says Kelp Setup Caused Exploit, as Aave Loss Questions Mount

Interoperability protocol LayerZero claims that an inadequate setup tied to Kelp’s decentralized verifier network (DVN) enabled malicious actors to steal $290 million from Kelp DAO, adding that preliminary signs point to North Korea-linked threat actors.

An attacker drained about 116,500 Restaked ETH (rsETH), worth as much as $293 million at the time, from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered rsETH bridge on Saturday.

LayerZero said Monday that the exploit stemmed from a single point of failure in Kelp’s setup, which relied on a single LayerZero DVN as the only verified path, despite LayerZero previously advising them against this.

“LayerZero and other external parties previously communicated best practices around DVN diversification to KelpDAO. Despite these recommendations, KelpDAO chose to utilize a 1/1 DVN configuration.”

In practice, that meant Kelp relied on a single verification path for cross-chain messages rather than requiring multiple independent checks.

The exploit quickly shifted attention from the technical cause to the question of who should absorb the losses, while the fallout spread into Aave, where the attacker used rsETH as collateral to borrow real liquidity.

Aave’s total value locked (TVL) had fallen by about $8.9 billion to $17.5 billion at the time of writing after the exploiter used the stolen funds to borrow on Aave, leaving about $195 million in “bad debt,” triggering withdrawals on the lending protocol.

LayerZero said Kelp’s rsETH bridge relied solely on the LayerZero Labs DVN, and argued that the incident reflected an unsafe application configuration rather than a compromise of LayerZero itself. The company said it is now urging all applications using 1/1 DVN setups to migrate to multi-DVN configurations and will stop signing or attesting messages for apps that retain the single verifier design.

Losses spark blame fight after $290 million Kelp exploit

With no recovery or compensation plan yet announced, users and market observers spent Monday debating whether losses should sit with Kelp DAO, LayerZero, Aave or rsETH holders themselves.

Yishi Wang, founder and CEO of open-source hardware wallet OneKey, said that the best path forward was to negotiate with the hacker, offer a 10% to 15% bounty, and get the bulk of the funds back.

“If negotiations fail, LayerZero’s ecosystem fund should foot the bulk of the bill—it’s got the deepest pockets and the most long-term skin in the game,” wrote the founder in a Monday X post, adding that Kelp DAO is “broke” and could make it up with tokens and future revenue, or consider selling the project.

Analytics platform DeFiLlama’s pseudonymous founder, 0xngmi, outlined three solutions, including the option to “socialize” losses among all users, “rug rsETH holders on L2s,” or try to return holder balances to a pre-hack snapshot, which would be “very hard to do,” he wrote in a Monday X post.

Cointelegraph reached out to Aave for comment, but had not received a response by publication.

Exploit raises Aave liquidation risks

Investor concerns about the Kelp exploit have significantly reduced Ether (ETH) liquidity on Aave, the lending protocol’s core collateral asset.

This low liquidity presents a “critical safety risk where liquidations of ETH collateral cannot take place while markets are at 100% utilization,” said MoneySupply, the pseudonymous head of strategy at Aave competitor lending protocol Spark, in a Saturday X post.

“With current illiquidity conditions on Aave, a 15-20% ETHUSD price drop could cause significant bad debt accumulation (on top of any potential issues attributable to the direct rsETH exploit),” he said.