Faron’s half-year in review: where we stand

Dear reader,

Last week we published our half-year report for January – June 2026. I want to use the occasion to reflect on what the first half of this year meant, and what we are building toward.

It is also the moment to introduce our new news channel – The Faron Blog. The Faron Blog serves to give you context around our news; what we’re working on between announcements, and how the landscape is evolving as bexmarilimab’s development progresses. Our news arrives in individual official announcements — a trial collaboration here, a data presentation there — and it can be genuinely difficult to follow our development from any single piece. We want to change that. Over the coming weeks and months, you will hear from our CMO Petri Bono, our Medical Director Aneel Nimba, our VP of Clinical Operations Joab Williamson and our Chief Scientific Officer Maija Hollmén, among others. Each will write from their own area of expertise, in their own voice. This post is simply the opening.

What the first half brought

We began 2026 with two clear priorities: advancing bexmarilimab in higher-risk MDS toward a randomized trial, and demonstrating that the biology travels beyond MDS into other cancer types. I am satisfied that we made real progress on both.

The most important single event of the half-year was the completion of our rights issue in April — one of the largest biotechnology financings in Finnish history. The capital raised gives us the runway to reach our key clinical milestones and to do so without compromising on the quality of execution. That matters enormously as we enter the most consequential phase of bexmarilimab‘s development.

In June, we presented updated data from the BEXMAB Phase 1/2 study at the European Hematology Association Congress in Stockholm. The efficacy and durability results continued to strengthen with longer follow-up, and for the first time we were able to share translational data from bone marrow samples that provides a biological account of why the responses we are seeing are as deep as they are. Petri and Aneel will go deeper on what that data means in their posts over the coming weeks — I will simply say that the EHA presentation reinforced my confidence that we have the right biology for this disease.

We also strengthened the organization in ways that will matter increasingly as we move into late-stage development. Heikki Jouttijärvi joined as Chief Technical Officer in March, bringing the kind of biopharma manufacturing and supply chain experience that a company preparing for a registrational trial genuinely needs. Dr. George Golumbeski joined our Board in May, bringing deep biotech business development expertise that will serve us well as we move into late-stage development.

Our IIT portfolio has continued to advance since our comprehensive July update covering all five trials. Last week we announced that the BEXAR trial at Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona has enrolled its first patient in metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma — the first clinical evaluation of an anti-Clever-1 strategy in combination with chemotherapy in a solid tumor. Soft-tissue sarcomas express some of the highest levels of Clever-1 of any tumor type, making this a compelling setting to test whether immune reprogramming can work alongside standard chemotherapy. If the combination shows evidence of synergy, it could strengthen the rationale for a broader chemotherapy-combination strategy across Clever-1-expressing tumors. The BLAZE trial at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden is also advancing toward first patient enrollment. Together these trials represent a genuine expansion of the bexmarilimab program beyond MDS and reflect the scientific community’s genuine interest in bexmarilimab‘s biology in solid tumor settings.

What the second half looks like

BEXERA is our top priority. As our randomized frontline HR-MDS trial, it represents the most important next step in advancing bexmarilimab, and we remain on track for first patient enrollment in Q4 this year. Trial start-up activities are progressing as planned across participating regions, and regulatory and operational processes required to initiate the trial are advancing.

Everything is coming together for the start we have been working toward. Joab will write in detail about what preparation for a trial like this actually involves. I will not try to summarize it here, except to say that the work has been thorough and the execution has been disciplined.

Beyond BEXERA, we will continue to gather evidence through the IIT portfolio and expand our understanding of the biology across multiple tumor types and treatment settings.  

I want to close by thanking our team, our clinical partners, our investigators, but most of all our patients and their caregivers who trust us. I also want to deeply thank our investors who make the development of bexmarilimab possible. The first half of 2026 was demanding. Our work continues, and we are better positioned than ever to take bexmarilimab to the next set of significant clinical milestones.

The full half-year report is available at faron.com/investors. I hope you will also follow this channel over the coming weeks.

— Juho Jalkanen, Chief Executive Officer

Forward-looking statements: This post contains forward-looking statements regarding the development of bexmarilimab and the BEXERA trial. Bexmarilimab is investigational and has not been approved by any regulatory authority.