Owner Scorecard


← All companies ← BCPC Manual BCYC → ← AUTL Biotechnology BEAM →

BCRX, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Biotechnology consumer brand

We are a global biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing medicines for hereditary angioedema and other rare diseases, driven by our deep commitment to improving the lives of people living with these conditions.

Strategy includes leveraging this established commercial platform to successfully commercialize a pipeline of potential first-in-class or best-in class oral small molecule and injectable protein therapeutics targeting a range of rare diseases.

Molecules from our discovery and business development efforts that are commercially available or that are in active development are summarized in the table below and are discussed in further detail under " Products and Product Candidates " in this " Part I—Item 1—Business " section of this report.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
BCRX · BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.
I

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025
$875M
+94.1% YoY · 118% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $886M 5-yr avg $417M
Operating margin −43.1% 5-yr avg −32.2%
Owner-earnings margin 35% 5-yr avg −31%
Free cash flow margin 35% 5-yr avg −31%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle
Operating margin has reached 39% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −184%) on a 95% gross margin — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Stock-based pay runs about 22% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on the pipeline against the patent cliff, and pricing. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −142%, above 15% in 0 of 3 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$26M$25M$21M$49M$18M$157M$271M$331M$451M$875M$886MRevenueRevenue
91%95%92%91%95%98%99%97%98%98%Gross marginGross mgn
43%55%143%76%381%76%59%65%59%40%41%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
232%266%411%219%690%133%94%65%39%19%21%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($49M)($57M)($94M)($99M)($175M)($178M)($148M)($104M)($3M)$341M($382M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−184.4%−227.9%−456.2%−203.7%−981.1%−113.1%−54.8%−31.3%−0.6%39.0%−43.1%Operating marginOp. mgn
($55M)($66M)($101M)($109M)($183M)($184M)($247M)($227M)($89M)$264M($458M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($53M)($41M)($93M)($90M)($135M)($142M)($162M)($95M)($52M)$347M$313MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$483K$704K$770K$724K$748K$777K$1M$2M$1M$1M$2MDepreciationDeprec.
($7M)$11M($1M)$870K$32M$6M$39M$74M($30M)($3M)$690MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$5M$328K$366K$343K$514K$2M$1M$2M$1M$2M$3MCapexCapex
20.0%1.3%1.8%0.7%2.9%1.5%0.5%0.7%0.2%0.3%0.3%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($54M)($41M)($93M)($90M)($136M)($143M)($163M)($97M)($53M)$346M$312MOwner earningsOwner earn.
−204.6%−164.7%−450.0%−184.1%−761.4%−90.9%−60.3%−29.2%−11.8%39.5%35.2%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($59M)($41M)($93M)($90M)($136M)($145M)($163M)($97M)($53M)$345M$310MFree cash flowFCF
−222.8%−164.7%−450.0%−184.1%−761.4%−92.0%−60.3%−29.4%−11.8%39.4%35.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-1552%-80%-142%ROICROIC
-3495%-79%-206%-285%Return on equityROE
n/m−79%−206%−285%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$22M$50M$27M$114M$272M$504M$305M$111M$321M$275M$238MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$9M$6M$4M$22M$9M$29M$51M$57M$79M$107M$109MReceivablesReceiv.
$500K$2M$0$7M$16M$28M$29M$8M$5M$6MInventoryInvent.
$4M$6M$8M$14M$19M$28M$14M$21M$12M$16M$11MAccounts payablePayables
$5M($220K)($2M)$8M($3M)$17M$64M$65M$76M$96M$104MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$67M$125M$114M$164M$324M$566M$517M$496M$422M$404M$374MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$54M$75M$69M$92M$106M$104M$106M$150M$160M$196M$195MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.2×1.7×1.6×1.8×3.1×5.5×4.9×3.3×2.6×2.1×1.9×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$90M$178M$147M$175M$335M$588M$550M$517M$490M$514M$465MTotal assetsAssets
$23M$23M$30M$0$120M$136M$232M$303M$315M$0$395MTotal debtDebt
$896K($27M)$3M($114M)($152M)($368M)($73M)$193M($6M)($275M)$157MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
-7.5×-6.7×-10.3×-8.4×-12.1×-3.0×-1.5×-1.0×-0.0×4.3×-5.1×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2M$84M$49M$38M($19M)($107M)($295M)($456M)($476M)($119M)($554M)Shareholders’ equityEquity
32.2%50.1%45.5%36.3%83.1%22.0%16.5%16.8%14.5%9.7%9.0%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
73.7M84.5M103M116M167M179M186M192M207M219M242MShares out (diluted)Shares
$0.36$0.30$0.20$0.42$0.11$0.88$1.46$1.72$2.18$4.00$3.66Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.75$-0.78$-0.98$-0.94$-1.09$-1.03$-1.33$-1.18$-0.43$1.21$-1.89EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.73$-0.49$-0.90$-0.78$-0.81$-0.80$-0.88$-0.50$-0.26$1.58$1.29Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.80$-0.49$-0.90$-0.78$-0.81$-0.81$-0.88$-0.51$-0.26$1.58$1.28Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.07$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01$0.01Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.02$0.99$0.48$0.33$-0.12$-0.60$-1.58$-2.37$-2.30$-0.55$-2.29Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.45 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+30.8%/yr+106.5%/yr
Capital spending / share−18.6%/yr+29.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count
219Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
−142%low FY2016
Gross margin
98%low FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$346Mowner earningsvs.$264Mnet incomelow FY2022

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $346M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1M it takes just to hold its position. It put $1M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $345M.

Reported net income$264M
Owner earnings$346M · 40% of revenue
FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$264M($89M)($227M)($247M)($184M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$1M+$1M+$2M+$1M+$777K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$85M+$65M+$56M+$45M+$35M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$3M−$30M+$74M+$39M+$6M
Cash from operations$347M($52M)($95M)($162M)($142M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−$1M−$1M−$2M−$1M−$777K
Owner earnings$346M($53M)($97M)($163M)($143M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−$1M−$513K−$2M
Free cash flow$345M($53M)($97M)($163M)($145M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue40%-12%-29%-60%-91%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $1M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $1M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $85M), owner earnings is nearer $261M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Material weakness in financial controls
“In 2023, we identified and timely reported two material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, which management determined to be subsequently remediated as of December 31, 2023 and September 30, 2024, respectively.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

  • Adequate
    Operating income $341M ÷ interest expense $79M
    What this means

    Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.

  • Net cash, debt-free
    Cash $90M + ST investments $185M − debt $0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $275M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Negative, funded by others
    DSO 45 + DIO 103 − DPO 303 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

  • Not meaningful here
    Invested capital ($209M) = debt $0 + equity ($119M) − cash
    Industry peers: median 4%
    What this means

    Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.

  • Positive this year, negative across the cycle
    latest $346M = operating cash $347M − maintenance capex $1M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median -165%)
    Industry peers: median 12%
    What this means

    What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 40% of revenue this year, a -165% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $85M of SBC) leaves $261M.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $347M ÷ net income $264M

    In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

    What this means

    How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

  • Reinvests most of it
    Dividends + buybacks $61K ÷ Owner Earnings $346M
    What this means

    Of $346M Owner Earnings, $61K (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $61K buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($85M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.

  • Investing or harvesting? 1.78×
    Expanding
    Capex $2M ÷ depreciation $1M
    What this means

    Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

  • Adequate size Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $875M
    What this means

    Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.

  • Strong liquidity Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.06×
    What this means

    Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.

  • Conservative debt Pass
    Debt ≤ working capital · $0 vs $208M WC
    What this means

    Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (10-yr record) · 9 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record Miss
    Uninterrupted dividends · none paid
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.

  • Earnings growth
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • Moderate price
    P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
    What this means

    Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.07/share (latest year $1.04), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.47/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 1 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 9 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 3 yrs
    What this means

    A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.

  • Operating margin −290% → 2% (3-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −290% early to 2% lately, median −184% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
    What this means

    The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.

  • Worst year 2020 · −981.1% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • How management talks about it Promotional
    What this means

    The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Our competitors or other third parties may also incorporate AI into their businesses more efficiently than us, which could impair our ability to compete effectively and adversely affect our results of operations.”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$374M
  • Cash & short-term investments$238M
  • Receivables$109M
  • Inventory$6M
  • Other current assets$20M
Current liabilities$195M
  • Accounts payable$11M
  • Other current liabilities$184M
Current ratio1.91×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.88×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.22×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$178Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+7.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.8× → 1.9×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($554M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($645M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$408M$13M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$14Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021Jon P. Stonehouse (our principal executive officer (“PEO”) for the years reported)$7.1M$17.1M($143M)
2022Jon P. Stonehouse (our principal executive officer (“PEO”) for the years reported)$7.0M$4.0M($163M)
2023Jon P. Stonehouse (our principal executive officer (“PEO”) for the years reported)$4.8M−$3.7M($97M)
2024Jon P. Stonehouse (our principal executive officer (“PEO”) for the years reported)$8.3M$11.0M($53M)
2025Jon P. Stonehouse (our principal executive officer (“PEO”) for the years reported)$13.0M$1.2M$346M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

  • Insider ownership3.8%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • Stock-based compensation$85M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 10% of revenue, equal to 25% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

  • Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$23M → $395M

    Debt rose from $23M to $395M while owner earnings went from about ($63M) to $65M: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
  • Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes as critical estimates

    each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Biotechnology

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
HALOHalozyme$1.4B83%37.1%17%39%
TECHBio-Techne$1.2B67%21.4%9%22%
NVAXNovavax Inc.$1.1B65%-117.4%-128%-50%
BCRXBioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.$875M95%-148.8%-142%-128%
HRMYHarmony Biosciences Holdings Inc.$868M79%26.7%38%32%
RGENRepligen Corporation$738M55%13.4%4%12%
ADMAADMA Biologics Inc$510M-13%-106.6%-39%-158%
TARSTarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc.$451M-65.9%-41%-46%
Group median67%-26.3%-17%-17%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. has delivered.

$
Base

The assumptions

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth, delivered
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)
P/B
Graham’s price gate

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $310M on 254M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $157M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($3M) runs well above depreciation ($2M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $312M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (BCRX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BCRX, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BCPC its page in the Manual BCYC →

Industry order: ← AUTL the Biotechnology chapter BEAM →