BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. (BCRX): what the price assumes

Generated: 2026-07-29 · Exported: 2026-08-01 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/BCRX

Headline

Field	Value
Ticker	BCRX
Company	BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.
Sector / Industry	Healthcare
Current price	$9.57/sh
Composition	Product sales, net 71% / License revenue 28% / Collaborative and other revenues 1%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

Field	Value
Inversion basis	revenue-multiple
EV / sales paid	4.3x
Steady-state operating margin assumed	36.5%
Implied growth	14.9%

Solve inputs: computed at a 12% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage, holding a 36.5% terminal operating margin (91.3% gross margin x the 40% mature-conversion prior); each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied revenue growth ~5.8pp.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~0%/yr; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

Reference	Value
vs own history	+0.27σ
sustained it ~5 years at this level	49%
implied end-window share	0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Family	Median price/FV	Models	Reads
Asset	—	0	—
Earnings	0.93x	2	justifies
Relative	0.69x	3	justifies
Growth	1.13x	4	expensive

Families that justify the price: Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.5%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=9)

Model	Family	FV	Price/FV	Applicable	Methodology
DCF Perpetual Growth	Growth	$31.28	0.31x	yes	FCF base $0.4B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.5%, 7yr projection
DCF Exit Multiple	Growth	$10.54	0.91x	yes	Exit EV/EBITDA: 4.0x / 6.3x / 9.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr
Relative Valuation	Relative	$13.94	0.69x	yes	P/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 4.0x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus
Simple DDM	Growth	—	—	no	—
Two-Stage DDM	Growth	—	—	no	—
Simple Excess Return	Asset	—	—	no	—
Two-Stage Excess Return	Asset	—	—	no	—
Discounted Future Market Cap	Growth	$7.13	1.34x	yes	Rev $0.9B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 2.2x / 2.7x / 3.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair Value	Relative	$0.00	—	no	Negative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0
Margin Trajectory	Growth	$4.85	1.97x	yes	Margin ramp: -50% → 12% over 7yr, rev growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered)
Earnings Power Value	Earnings	—	—	no	—
Residual Income	Asset	—	—	no	—
Graham Number	Asset	—	—	no	—
EV/EBITDA Relative	Relative	$25.91	0.37x	yes	EBITDA $0.43B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x
FCF Yield	Earnings	$12.27	0.78x	yes	FCF $310.4M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF Yield	Earnings	$8.88	1.08x	yes	SBC-adj FCF $0.23B (FCF $0.31B − SBC $0.08B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham Formula	Earnings	—	—	no	—
ROIC-Justified P/B	Asset	—	—	no	—
P/Sales Sector	Relative	$13.94	0.69x	yes	Revenue $0.89B × sector P/S 4.0x
PEG Fair Value	Relative	—	—	no	—
Earnings Yield	Earnings	—	—	no	—
Funds From Operations Multiple	Relative	—	—	no	—
Clinical Phase NPV	Growth	—	—	no	—
Merton	Asset	—	—	no	—
V5 Mechanical	—	—	—	no	—

Solvency

Field	Value
Net debt	$9.9m
Interest coverage	-5.1x
Share count CAGR (dilution)	7.0%
Burning cash	no

Operating profit is negative or near zero and the company has no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so years-to-repay cannot be computed honestly.

Bullet Takeaways

• ORLADEYO is the whole company today, and management has guided global net revenue from it to between $625 million and $645 million for 2026, with total revenue of $635 million to $660 million.
• The economics of that revenue are the reason the stock is not cheap on any conventional measure: gross margin runs about 91.3%, and today's price holds a steady-state operating margin of about 36.5% as its central assumption, a level no company in this report's comparison set currently earns.
• Two dated events sit close together: second-quarter results on August 5, 2026, and the completion of enrollment in the pivotal study for navenibart, the Phase 3 asset acquired with Astria Therapeutics in January.

Bull Case

About ninety-one cents of every revenue dollar survives the cost of actually making the drug. That single figure is the structural fact everything else about BioCryst rests on. It is what a small molecule for a rare disease looks like when it works: the molecule costs almost nothing to manufacture, the patient population is small enough to be reached by a modest sales force, and the price per patient is set by the severity of the condition rather than by competitive tendering. FOLD, another rare-disease specialist in the comparison set here, runs a gross margin of 88.5%, which confirms the pattern is structural to the category rather than unique to one company.

What that margin buys is leverage, and the leverage has started to show. The March quarter produced ORLADEYO net revenue of $148.3 million, up 11% against the prior year and up 21% on a comparable basis once the divested European business is stripped out. Growth of that shape in a business where the cost of goods barely moves means almost every incremental dollar of revenue lands in operating profit. That is the mechanism by which a company with a history of losses becomes a company with a margin, and it does not require any new science to work.

The competitive position got materially stronger in January. BioCryst completed the acquisition of Astria Therapeutics on January 23, 2026, bringing in navenibart, a long-acting plasma kallikrein inhibitor in Phase 3 development. The strategic logic is worth spelling out, because it is not simply a bigger pipeline. Patients with hereditary angioedema differ in what they will tolerate: some want a daily pill, others prefer an infrequent injection and will accept a needle to avoid a daily routine. Owning an approved product for the first group and a late-stage candidate for the second means the physician's choice between modalities stops being a choice between companies. That is a durable position in a disease where the prescriber base is small, concentrated and slow to switch.

The balance sheet was cleaned up before the deal was struck. The FY2025 10-K records that "On October 8, 2025, we used a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the European ORLADEYO business to pay off in full the outstanding principal balance of $198.7 million and terminate the Pharmakon Loan Agreement". Selling a geography to retire debt, then borrowing again to buy a Phase 3 asset, is a company recycling capital toward the highest-value use rather than accumulating obligations. Today it holds roughly 388 million dollars of cash and investments against borrowings near 398 million, leaving the net position close to flat, and it is no longer burning cash.

The bear will point out that the price assumes an operating margin far above anything the company has demonstrated. That is true, and it is the central question. The counter is arithmetic rather than optimism: management guided full-year non-GAAP operating expenses to $450 million to $470 million against revenue guidance of $635 million to $660 million. The expense base for a rare-disease commercial organization does not scale with revenue the way a manufacturer's does. If revenue keeps compounding while that expense line grows slowly, the margin the price assumes is not a leap of faith so much as a continuation of the arithmetic already visible in the guidance.

Bear Case

The methods used to value BioCryst do not agree, and the disagreement is not evenly distributed. The approach that reaches highest gets there by projecting free cash flow compounding at 25% a year for seven years, then discounting it at a rate you would apply to a diversified company with several products. The approaches that model the business as what it actually is, a single commercial drug whose profitability has to ramp from a loss to something respectable over years, land materially below today's quote. The conservative reads are more honest here for a simple reason. A company with one approved product and one Phase 3 candidate carries binary risk that a smooth compounding assumption cannot express, and the discount rate that reflects that risk is the higher one, not the lower one.

Follow that through to the central assumption. Today's price is read against sales at about 4.2 times revenue, and the arithmetic behind that multiple holds a steady-state operating margin of 36.5%. That number is not an observation about the company as it exists today. It is constructed by taking the roughly 91.3% of revenue that survives cost of goods and applying an assumption about what share of gross profit a mature version of this business would keep. Now look at what comparable companies actually achieve. APLS runs an operating margin of 14.9%, KNSA 12.4%, FOLD 5.2%, and ARQT 0.8%. AXSM, SUPN, ARDX and CORT are all at or below breakeven on the same measure. Not one company in this comparison set earns anything close to 36.5%, and several of them have been commercial for longer than BioCryst has.

Some of the revenue is also already spoken for. The filing describes royalty obligations owed to OMERS on proceeds from certain markets, layered on top of royalties payable to RPI under royalty purchase agreements from 2020 and 2021. Selling future royalties is a legitimate way for a development-stage company to fund itself, and BioCryst used it. The consequence arrives later: a slice of the very revenue stream the price is capitalizing belongs to someone else, and that slice does not shrink when the margin assumption gets tested.

The demand side is more fragile than a growth rate suggests. When the 10-K lists what future ORLADEYO revenue depends on, it names "the number of physicians prescribing ORLADEYO, the rate of monthly prescriptions, reimbursement from third-party and government payors, the number of patients receiving free product, our pricing strategy, and market trends". Read that list carefully. Payor reimbursement and free-goods programs both appear, which means the patient count and the paid patient count are different numbers, and the gap between them is a policy decision rather than a clinical one. In a small population, a handful of payor decisions moves the revenue line more than any commercial execution does.

Competition is coming from companies with deeper pockets, and the filing says so directly: "many competitors are more experienced and have significantly more resources, and their products could reach the market faster, be more cost effective or have a better efficacy or tolerability profile than our products and product candidates". Hereditary angioedema has become a target for larger developers precisely because the pricing is attractive. BioCryst's answer to that was to buy navenibart, which is a good answer, but it was financed rather than funded from earnings, and the deal added borrowings of roughly 398 million dollars to a company that had just cleared its balance sheet.

The dilution record deserves attention too. Share count has grown about 7% a year across the four years to March 31, 2026. Every one of those shares is a claim on the same margin the price is assuming, and a company that has funded itself partly through issuance has an established habit that a shareholder should assume continues if the pipeline needs money.

Finally, the base rate. Of companies that have grown at comparable rates, only about half sustained it for roughly five years. Half is not a damning number, and it is worth stating plainly rather than dressing up: this is a coin flip on persistence, attached to a price that already assumes the persistence and the margin arrive together. The bull case is not implausible. It is simply already in the quote.

Valuation

Trailing operating profit sits well below the level today's price assumes, which means the price cannot be read against earnings at all. It has to be read against sales, and on that basis the market is paying about 4.2 times revenue. What sits inside that multiple is a specific pair of assumptions: revenue compounding at roughly 14.1% a year over the next several years, and a steady-state operating margin of about 36.5% eventually being reached and held.

The margin assumption is the load-bearing one, and it deserves to be unpacked rather than accepted. It is built from the roughly 91.3% of revenue that survives cost of goods, combined with an assumption about how much of that gross profit a mature version of this business keeps after selling, general and research costs. Neither piece is arbitrary, but the second is an assumption rather than an observation, and no company in this report's comparison set currently earns an operating margin in that range: APLS at 14.9% and KNSA at 12.4% are the strongest, and both are less than half of it. The revenue growth assumption is the milder of the two demands.

The calculation is also sensitive to its discount rate in a way worth naming. It runs at a 12% cost of capital with a 4% terminal growth rate over a five-year stage, and each additional percentage point of cost of capital moves the required revenue growth by about 5.7 points. For a company whose risk profile changes with a single clinical readout, that sensitivity is not academic.

Across the methods, the pattern is unusual for a growth-stage biotech. The forward-growth approaches sit just under today's price, which stands about 11% above that family's central estimate, while the peer-multiple and cash-flow approaches land above it. There is no asset-based read at all, because a company with no meaningful book equity gives the book-value methods nothing to work with. What that leaves is a valuation resting entirely on forward economics, with no floor underneath it from tangible assets. That is the normal condition for a commercial-stage biotech, and it is why the balance sheet matters more here than the multiple does.

Two filing-sourced inputs frame the earnings base. Management guided 2026 global net ORLADEYO revenue to $625 million to $645 million with total revenue of $635 million to $660 million, against non-GAAP operating expenses of $450 million to $470 million. Separately, the FY2025 10-K discloses royalty obligations to OMERS and to RPI under royalty purchase agreements, meaning a portion of ORLADEYO's economics is contractually committed elsewhere. The gap between the guided revenue and the guided expense line is the number the whole valuation is watching, and the royalty obligations are the reason it converts to shareholder value at less than face.

On solvency, the position is close to neutral and recently rebuilt. Cash and investments of roughly 388 million dollars sit against borrowings of about 398 million, leaving net obligations near 10 million, after the company retired its prior loan in full using proceeds from the European divestiture and then borrowed again to fund the Astria acquisition. The company is not burning cash. The offsetting fact is dilution: share count has risen about 7% a year across the four years to March 31, 2026, which is the mechanism by which a development-stage company funds itself and the reason per-share progress lags the revenue line. What bounds the downside here is neither assets nor cash but the durability of a single revenue stream, and that is the honest place to end.

Catalysts

Two things land within weeks of each other. BioCryst reports second-quarter results on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, with a call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Separately, the company said enrollment in the pivotal study of navenibart was on track to complete by the end of June 2026. The first is a read on the commercial engine; the second starts the clock on the event that decides whether BioCryst has one product or two.

The commercial bar for August is set by what the March quarter delivered. ORLADEYO net revenue reached $148.3 million, up 11% against the prior year, and up 21% once the divested European business is excluded from the comparison. Management held full-year guidance at $625 million to $645 million of global net ORLADEYO revenue. The useful check in August is not whether revenue grows but whether the gap between revenue growth and operating expense growth continues to widen, since that gap is the entire margin thesis.

The structural news of the year is already done. BioCryst completed its acquisition of Astria Therapeutics on January 23, 2026, financing it with a term loan and adding navenibart and STAR-0310 to the pipeline. The company has also signed a European licensing agreement carrying up to $275 million in potential milestones. Milestone payments of that kind are contingent and lumpy, and they arrive on the counterparty's timetable rather than the company's, so they belong in the assessment as optionality rather than as a scheduled event.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (consolidated) (reported)

• AXSM (AXSOME THERAPEUTICS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …party, and Blackstone. This new direct agreement superseded the prior direct agreement among us, Antecip, a related party, and Hercules that had been entered into in connection with the Hercules Loan Agreement, which terminated automatically upon repayment of our Hercules loan obligations in full on May 8, 2025. F-…
• FY2025 10-K: , as Blackstone Representative, and the lenders from time to time party thereto (Incorporated by reference, Exhibit 10.2 to the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, filed August 4, 2025). 10.23+++ Securities Purchase Agreement, dated May 8, 2025, by and among Axsome Therapeutics, Inc., Axis Aggregator, L.P.,…
• ARQT (ARCUTIS BIOTHERAPEUTICS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …Policies Basis of Presentation and Principles of Consolidation The Company's consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with United States generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP). The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly owned…
• FY2025 10-K: …on the consolidated balance sheets, are $ 1.7 million in 2026 and $ 0.9 million in 2027, respectively. These future purchase commitments do not represent all of the Company's anticipated purchases, but instead represents only the contractually obligated minimum purchases or firm commitments of non-cancelable minimum…
• ARDX (ARDELYX, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …from our loan agreements with SLR, funds from our collaboration partnerships, as well as the sale of future royalties and commercialization milestones to HCR. We expect that we will increasingly rely on cash generated from our commercial operations to fund our operating plan while maintaining financial flexibility to…
• FY2025 10-K: …earnings to finance the growth and development of our business. Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities Not applicable. Stock Performance Graph The following performance graph shall not be deemed "soliciting material" or to be "filed" with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as…
• KNSA (Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals International, plc)
• FY2025 10-K: 1 ​ ​ 107,954 ​ ​ 122,715 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period ​ $ 165,596 ​ $ 183,581 ​ $ 107,954 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Supplemental information: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Cash paid for income taxes, net ​ $ 3,012 ​ $ 2,003 ​ $ 5,605 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Supplemental disclosure of non-cash investing and financing…
• FY2025 10-K: ​ 114 Table of Contents ​ ​ ​ ​ Incorporated by Reference Exhibit Number ​ ​ ​ Exhibit Description ​ ​ ​ Form File No. Exhibit Filing Date Filed/ Furnished Herewith ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 10.9††+ ​ License Agreement, dated August 2, 2022, by and among Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals (UK), Ltd., Genentech, Inc. and F.…
• SUPN (SUPERNUS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …Shire Laboratories Inc. and Shire plc (incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.10 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1, File No. 333-171375, as amended on March 16, 2012). 10.4 †* Guanfacine License Agreement, dated as of December 22, 2005, by and among the Registrant, Shire LLC and Shire plc, as…
• FY2025 10-K: * C ontingent Value Rights Agreement, dated July 30, 2025, by and among Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Equ initi Trust Company, LLC (incorporated by reference to Exh ibit 10.1 to the Company's Form 8-K filed on July 31, 2025, File No. 001-35518). 10.55 ††* A greement and Plan of Merger, dated June 13, 2025, by and…
• FOLD (AMICUS THERAPEUTICS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and Plan of Merger, dated November 19, 2013, by and among Amicus Therapeutics, Inc., CB Acquisition Corp., Callidus BioPharma, Inc., and Cuong Do Form 8-K 2/12/2014 2.1 +2.2 Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated July 5, 2016, by and among MiaMed, Inc., the Registrant and Minervas Merger Sub, Inc. Form 8-K 7/6/2016 2.1…
• FY2025 10-K: …its members. The member to whom such authority is delegated must report, for informational purposes only, any pre-approval decisions to the Audit and Compliance Committee at its next scheduled meeting. -166- Table of Contents -167- Table of Contents PART IV Item 15. EXHIBITS, FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULE 1. Index to…
• APLS (APELLIS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …Public Accounting Firm (PCAOB ID: 34) 110 Consolidated Financial Statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023 and for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024: Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2025 and 2024 112 Consolidated Statements of Operations and…
• FY2025 10-K: …risk profile of our investments, an immediate 10% change in interest rates would not have a material effect on the fair market value of our investment portfolio. Item 8. Financial Statemen ts and Supplementary Data. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm…
• CORT (CORCEPT THERAPEUTICS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …Therapeutics Incorporated (collectively, "Corcept," the "Company," "we," "us," and "our") is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of medications to treat severe endocrinologic, oncologic, metabolic and neurologic disorders by modulating the effects of the hormone…
• FY2025 10-K: AMES N. WILSON Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors February 24, 2026 James N. Wilson /s/ GREGG ALTON Director February 24, 2026 Gregg Alton /s/ G. LEONARD BAKER, JR. Director February 24, 2026 G. Leonard Baker, Jr. /s/ DAVID L. MAHONEY Director February 24, 2026 David L. Mahoney /s/ JOSHUA MURRAY Director…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

BioCryst first quarter 2026 results, reported May 6, 2026 · BioCryst second quarter 2026 earnings announcement, July 22, 2026, and first quarter 2026 business update, May 6, 2026 · BioCryst completion of Astria Therapeutics acquisition, January 23, 2026 · FY2025 10-K · BioCryst second quarter 2026 earnings announcement, July 22, 2026 · BioCryst first quarter 2026 business update, May 6, 2026