Olema President and CEO Sean Bohen outlined the company’s strategy at a healthcare conference, emphasizing the limitations of earlier oral SERDs and the need for complete estrogen receptor antagonism with sustained drug exposure. He argued that palazestrant’s pharmacology overcomes these challenges by avoiding molecular flaws and combination toxicities that hindered other candidates.

Bohen highlighted palazestrant’s superior pharmacokinetics versus giredestrant, enabling full-dose combinations with CDK4/6 inhibitors. He reported a one-year median progression-free survival in post-CDK4/6 patients, compared with eight months in other datasets, including 14 months in patients with ESR1 mutations.

Olema’s Phase 3 OPERA-02 trial is evaluating ribociclib plus palazestrant versus ribociclib plus aromatase inhibitor, while OPERA-01 targets an additional two months of PFS over fulvestrant control. The company has initiated U.S. launch planning, views the ER-positive market at over $7 billion annually, and seeks a global commercialization partner.

Olema’s OP-3136 targets KAT6A, KAT6B and KAT7 with reduced activity against KAT5 and KAT8 to mitigate cytopenias and dysgeusia. First monotherapy tolerability and exposure data are expected in Q2, with preclinical signals suggesting potential beyond breast cancer, including prostate and lung indications.