What Was Exelixis Telling You Before Its Stock Ran?

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Shares of Exelixis (EXEL) returned 76.0% between October 29, 2025, and October 30, 2026, compared with 11.3% for the S&P 500. During that year, the FDA accepted the company’s application for its experimental cancer drug zanzalintinib. Management now says the drug is positioned to drive Exelixis’s next phase of growth. What had Exelixis told investors about zanzalintinib before this run?

Exelixis Flagged Zanzalintinib In February 2025

Management named the drug more than eight months before the return window measured here. During its February 11, 2025 earnings call, the company said zanzalintinib would take center stage in 2025 as its next big opportunity in cancer drugs. That statement was a plan rather than a final result, but it told investors which drug management was betting on.

The trial results followed. On June 22, 2025, Exelixis said that zanzalintinib, when given with the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab, helped patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer live longer than regorafenib did in a phase 3 trial known as STELLAR-303. On October 20, 2025, nine days before the return window opened, the company released detailed results. Exelixis repeated that the trial had met one of its two main goals, showing a 20% reduction in the risk of death.

Even with the plan and the results public for months, Exelixis stock rose only 0.7% in the six months to October 29, 2025. A reader placing the February promise alongside the June data could see a second drug taking shape while the shares went nowhere.

Zanzalintinib Reached FDA Review During The Window

The regulatory process advanced early in the measurement period. On February 2, 2026, Exelixis said the FDA had accepted its application to sell zanzalintinib with atezolizumab in metastatic colorectal cancer. On its October 29, 2026 call, management said the application is based on STELLAR-303, the same trial investors heard about in June 2025.

Exelixis did not climb alone over the same dates. Merck stock returned 77.8%, a little more than Exelixis. Two other companies on the Trefis peer list for Exelixis posted smaller gains: Bristol Myers Squibb returned 53.2% and Pfizer 34.5%. Exelixis’s own profit grew as well. Its operating income reached $1.0 billion in the twelve months to September 30, 2026, up from $0.82 billion a year earlier.

Is Exelixis Still Building Its Zanzalintinib Case?

The company is still building that case. On its October 29, 2026 call, management said Exelixis now has seven ongoing zanzalintinib trials that could each support an approved use. STELLAR-316, a phase 3 trial of zanzalintinib in colorectal cancer, is now enrolling patients.

Until zanzalintinib is approved, Exelixis earns nearly all its revenue from cabozantinib. U.S. sales of the cabozantinib drugs grew about 11% from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2026, reaching $605 million. Total revenue for that quarter was $659 million, with royalties from partners on their sales of cabozantinib making up most of the rest.

Investors who read the 2025 signals are still waiting on the outcome. The next piece is the FDA’s decision on the colorectal cancer application, now due in March 2027. The FDA pushed that decision back by three months in September 2026.

Does This Mean You Should Act On EXEL?

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