Agenus's Q4/full-year 2024 call was framed around disciplined cost reduction and concentrating resources on its lead immuno-oncology asset BOT/BAL (botensilimab + balstilimab). The company cut full-year operating cash use to $168M (from $224M) and set a target to reach roughly $50M annualized burn by mid-2025 through headcount and external-advisor reductions, while shelving (not killing) other pipeline programs as immuno-oncology remains out of favor. Clinically, BOT/BAL showed durable activity in refractory MSS colorectal cancer and complete/near-complete pathological responses in the neoadjuvant setting, with single-center Cornell data now corroborated across 11 European centers, supporting a potential organ-sparing approval path led by rectal cancer. Financially the position was tight — $40.4M cash at year-end (down from $76.1M), a $232.3M net loss, and revenue that is largely non-cash royalties — so management leaned on a $20M mortgage and contract-stage discussions to monetize its Emeryville manufacturing and West Coast real-estate assets, plus late-stage partnership talks.
Thank you, Regina. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Agenus's fourth quarter and year-end 2024 financial results and corporate update call. Earlier today, we issued a press release detailing our financial results and key corporate developments. A copy of the press release is available on our website at www.investors.agenusbio.com. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements.
These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Please refer to our SEC filings for further detail. Joining me today are Garo Armen, Chairman and CEO; Steven O'Day, Chief Medical Officer; Robin Taylor, Chief Commercial Officer; Christine Klaskin, VP Finance and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer. Now, I'll turn the call over to Garo.
A very good morning once again from a delightful day in Lexington, Massachusetts. Thank you very much for joining us. First, let me start by saying we are, as a company, pleased to report that we delivered on our commitment to significantly reduce Agenus's operational burn. By the end of 2024, we had reduced our annualized burn rate to the level that we had guided everyone.
We are executing on our next phase of strategic cost reductions with an annualized burn to approximate $50 million by the middle of this year. We are very much on track for that number. Our objective is to direct every available resource towards what truly matters to our stakeholders, and patients particularly, to make sure that our groundbreaking potential of BOT/BAL is realized and patients have access to it as soon as possible. BOT/BAL continues to demonstrate unprecedented clinical activity.
Recently, we presented at major oncology forums such as AACR Immuno-oncology for the first year that AACR organized the Immuno-oncology Division of its annual conference. ASCO GI in January, SITC in the fall, ESMO and ESMO GI, and we detailed the most influential peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Medicine, JCO, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Cancer Discovery. All these were accomplished in the last 12 months or less. We are witnessing transformative clinical outcomes in colorectal cancer and other tumors that have been historically unresponsive to immunotherapy.
This is based on the opinion of some of the most prestigious experts in the field. In a matter of example, Botensilimab has demonstrated durable, and I want to underline durable responses, and prolonged survival in refractory microsatellite stable colorectal cancer. Now, this particular kind of colorectal cancer, meaning MSS, is accounting for these days over 90% of CRCs.
We've seen encouraging activity with the addition of BOT/BAL to FOLFOX, which is a standard of care, including Bevacizumab, in first-line MSS CRCs. These are early indications of activity, but in terms of both efficacy and tolerability, these early signals are very encouraging. We have also either seen complete or near-complete pathological responses, very importantly in neoadjuvant MSS as well as MSI CRC. Even though the trade likes to break these into two categories, we believe, based on the results that we have seen, our agents are active in both categories of colorectal cancer.
This has transformative potential to enable chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery-free options for patients because, in some cases like rectal cancer, surgery, along with the other standards of care, can be debilitating for patients, particularly the fact that CRC and rectal cancer have now been seen more and more frequently in younger patients.
I'd say these results, based on the opinion of our experts, are beyond promising. They are potentially revolutionary. Also importantly, these outcomes aren't just our internal assessment. Leading global oncology centers and experts are independently conducting investigator-sponsored trials. In some cases, all we need to do is just provide product for them, and we incur no cost. This independent validation by some of the most respected oncologists and oncology centers, who are pivotal in securing approval in our breakthrough therapies, significantly amplifies our confidence in BOT/BAL and their potential for patients.
Several of these trials, particularly in the neoadjuvant setting, are expected to rapidly enroll in potentially organ-sparing trials with BOT/BAL. These trials have gotten underway. In fact, we have a new trial that's gotten underway this week with inquiries that have come in from patients ahead of the official opening of the trial.
Additionally, we've strategically continued monitoring and monetizing the potential of our non-core assets. Our high-value biologics manufacturing facility in Emeryville and Berkeley, our land in Vacaville to fortify our balance sheet currently, are high-priority projects.
We're engaged in also late-stage partnership discussions to secure funding for BOT/BAL and BOT/BAL development and registration, with an emphasis on neoadjuvant treatment of early-stage colon—I shouldn't say early-stage, but intermediate-stage colon and rectal cancers, where these are clear opportunities for BOT/BAL to provide significant benefit to patients. With that, I'll turn it over to Christine for a quick review of our financials. Christine?
Thank you, Garo. We ended the year 2024 with a consolidated cash balance of $40.4 million. This compares to a balance of $76.1 million at December 31, 2023. Cash used in operations for the year ended December 31, 2024, was $168 million. This is reduced from $224 million for the prior year.
For the year ended December 31, 2024, we recognized revenue of $103.5 million and incurred a net loss of $232.3 million or $10.59 per share. For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2024, we recognized revenue of $26.8 million and incurred a net loss of $46.8 million or $2.04 per share. Our revenue primarily consists of non-cash royalty revenue. I'll now turn the call back to Garo.
Thank you, Christine. In summary, while we recognize that our financial position is not reflective of the high potential and the promise of our product, and it's a bit tighter than ideal, we are taking decisive actions to continue to—and we will continue to take very decisive actions to bolster our cash position as well as to contain costs. Now, we're very heartened by the fact that we've had significant external validation through numerous selected high-quality centers that are doing trials, such as ISTs for us, and robust clinical activity that we have seen in BOT/BAL. These, of course, position us to advance our lead programs in 2025 and beyond. We remain committed and strategically aligned to deliver groundbreaking treatments for patients.
This is very important because having treated now well over 1,000 patients across nine different cancers, with a heavy concentration on colon cancer, and seen the benefit to patients, it's very heartening that we have kept our eye on developing BOT/BAL as a high priority for us. With that, I will end my call, and I think we welcome questions that you may have.