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CRSP, CRISPR Therapeutics AG

Biotechnology consumer brand UnprofitableNet current asset value

We are a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of CRISPR-based therapeutics, including by using CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

CRISPR/Cas9 is a revolutionary technology for gene editing, the process of precisely altering specific sequences of genomic DNA.

We have advanced this technology from discovery to an approved medicine with unparalleled speed, culminating in the landmark first approval of a CRISPR-based therapy, CASGEVY (exagamglogene autotemcel [exa-cel]), in 2023 with our collaborators at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, or Vertex.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CRSP · CRISPR Therapeutics AG

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$4M

−90.6% YoY · 37% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM

Cash & investments $2.4B

Cash burn · annual $400M

Runway 6.1 yrs

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation: Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. Net current asset value. Current assets alone exceed every liability combined, and the surplus is most of the balance sheet: the shape Graham called a net-net.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 41% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −1319%) — 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 210% 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 −27%, above 15% in 1 of 6 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.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$5M	$41M	$3M	$290M	$719K	$915M	$1M	$371M	$37M	$4M	$4M	RevenueRevenue
601%	87%	n/m	22%	n/m	11%	n/m	21%	196%	n/m	n/m	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
818%	170%	n/m	62%	n/m	37%	n/m	104%	831%	n/m	n/m	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($68M)	($65M)	($159M)	$47M	($354M)	$374M	($673M)	($223M)	($467M)	($665M)	($646M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
n/m	−157.7%	n/m	16.1%	n/m	40.8%	n/m	−60.0%	n/m	n/m	n/m	Operating marginOp. mgn
($23M)	($68M)	($165M)	$67M	($349M)	$378M	($650M)	($154M)	($366M)	($582M)	($569M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
($53M)	($70M)	($96M)	$57M	($238M)	$539M	($496M)	($260M)	($143M)	($345M)	($400M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$925K	$3M	$4M	$5M	$9M	$18M	$24M	$20M	$19M	$19M	$19M	DepreciationDeprec.
($41M)	($24M)	$30M	($59M)	$35M	$41M	$32M	($208M)	$118M	$145M	$81M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$3M	$8M	$3M	$7M	$18M	$82M	$37M	$9M	$2M	$914K	$1M	CapexCapex
58.4%	19.1%	88.8%	2.3%	n/m	8.9%	n/m	2.6%	5.1%	26.0%	29.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($54M)	($73M)	($99M)	$52M	($248M)	$521M	($520M)	($270M)	($145M)	($346M)	($401M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
n/m	−178.3%	n/m	17.9%	n/m	56.9%	n/m	−72.7%	−387.7%	n/m	n/m	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($56M)	($78M)	($99M)	$50M	($257M)	$457M	($533M)	($270M)	($145M)	($346M)	($401M)	Free cash flowFCF
n/m	−190.0%	n/m	17.3%	n/m	50.0%	n/m	−72.7%	−387.7%	n/m	n/m	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	—	—	-56%	25%	-32%	-12%	-23%	-33%	-26%	ROICROIC
-10%	-36%	-42%	7%	-21%	16%	-35%	-8%	-19%	-30%	-31%	Return on equityROE
−10%	−36%	−42%	7%	−21%	16%	−35%	−8%	−19%	−30%	−31%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$316M	$240M	$457M	$944M	$1.7B	$2.4B	$1.9B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$3M	$3M	$88K	$99K	$144K	$305K	$0	$200M	$25M	$0	$0	ReceivablesReceiv.
$5M	$2M	$5M	$6M	$9M	$15M	$27M	$38M	$15M	$11M	$14M	Accounts payablePayables
($1M)	$987K	($5M)	($6M)	($9M)	($15M)	($27M)	$162M	$10M	($11M)	($14M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$320M	$248M	$466M	$988M	$1.7B	$2.4B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
$22M	$15M	$28M	$57M	$94M	$120M	$121M	$109M	$88M	$149M	$136M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
14.6×	17.1×	16.8×	17.3×	18.2×	20.2×	15.3×	17.5×	22.1×	13.3×	18.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$345M	$271M	$489M	$1.1B	$1.8B	$2.8B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.7B	Total assetsAssets
$233M	$188M	$392M	$939M	$1.7B	$2.4B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.8B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
210.0%	46.0%	n/m	15.2%	n/m	11.2%	n/m	21.8%	232.0%	n/m	n/m	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
12.3M	40.1M	48.0M	56.9M	65.9M	80.4M	77.7M	79.2M	84.4M	89.9M	96.1M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.42	$1.02	$0.07	$5.09	$0.01	$11.38	$0.02	$4.69	$0.44	$0.04	$0.04	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.89	$-1.71	$-3.44	$1.17	$-5.29	$4.70	$-8.36	$-1.94	$-4.34	$-6.47	$-5.92	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-4.39	$-1.83	$-2.06	$0.91	$-3.75	$6.48	$-6.69	$-3.41	$-1.71	$-3.85	$-4.18	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-4.56	$-1.94	$-2.06	$0.88	$-3.89	$5.69	$-6.85	$-3.41	$-1.71	$-3.85	$-4.18	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.25	$0.20	$0.06	$0.12	$0.28	$1.02	$0.48	$0.12	$0.02	$0.01	$0.01	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$19.00	$4.69	$8.18	$16.50	$25.23	$29.85	$24.12	$23.77	$22.90	$21.37	$18.89	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×3.27 into 2017 — 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-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−23.2%/yr	+29.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	−29.8%/yr	−48.4%/yr
Book value / share	+1.3%/yr	−3.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

90Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−33%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($346M)owner earningsvs.($582M)net incomelow FY2022

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

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 turned a $582M loss into ($346M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($582M)	($366M)	($154M)	($650M)	$378M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$19M	+$19M	+$20M	+$24M	+$18M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$72M	+$87M	+$81M	+$98M	+$102M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$145M	+$118M	−$208M	+$32M	+$41M
Cash from operations	($345M)	($143M)	($260M)	($496M)	$539M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$914K	−$2M	−$9M	−$24M	−$18M
Owner earnings	($346M)	($145M)	($270M)	($520M)	$521M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$13M	−$64M
Free cash flow	($346M)	($145M)	($270M)	($533M)	$457M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-9855%	-388%	-73%	-43398%	57%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . 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 $72M), owner earnings is nearer ($418M).

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 →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

No meaningful interest burden

Little or no interest expense reported

What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$1.9B

Net cash

Cash $348M + ST investments $1.6B − debt $38M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.9B, 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.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -32%

Below average through the cycle

6-yr median, range -56%–25%; -33% latest = NOPAT ($525M) ÷ invested capital $1.6B

Industry peers: median -102%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 6 years (it ran -33% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin -1042%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -43398%–57%; latest ($346M) = operating cash ($345M) − maintenance capex $914K

Industry peers: median -1945%

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 -9855% of revenue this year, a -1042% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $72M of SBC) leaves ($418M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($345M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($582M) · cash from operations ($345M)

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.05×

Harvesting

Capex $914K ÷ depreciation $19M

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 · $4M

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× · 13.32×

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 · $38M vs $1.8B 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) · 8 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 $-3.81/share (latest year $-6.03), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $19.93/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 2 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −2188% → −6748% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −2188% early to −6748% lately, median −1319% — competition or costs are biting in.
Worst year 2022 · −56190.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The returns have faded, yet the filing reaches for a promoter’s vocabulary — world-class, best-in-class, disruptive — more than an owner’s. When the words sell harder than the results deliver, the gap is the thing to weigh.

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 Framed as a capability

The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.

“Using AI-guided structural modeling and large-scale screening, the polymerase was optimized to support gene correction activity based on synthetic nucleotide templates.”

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$2.4B

Cash & short-term investments$2.4B
Other current assets$7M

Current liabilities$136M

Accounts payable$14M
Other current liabilities$123M

Current ratio17.96×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio—inventory untagged this quarter, so withheld rather than shown equal to the current ratio

Cash ratio17.92×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$2.3Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway6.1 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+68.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters15.7× → 18.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.8Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$1.5BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$788M$202M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$15Mcustomer 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 year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D.	$17.0M	−$27.4M	$521M
2022	Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D.	$20.7M	$1.7M	($520M)
2023	Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D.	$12.3M	$24.8M	($270M)
2024	Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D.	$33.2M	$10.0M	($145M)
2025	Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D.	$7.7M	$22.0M	($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.

Stock-based compensation$72M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2065% of revenue. 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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition 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.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
SLDBSolid Biosciences Inc.	$8M	—	-2214.1%	-152%	-1945%
DBVTDBV Technologies S.A.	$6M	—	-1727.6%	-1206%	-1493%
OCGNOcugen Inc.	$4M	—	-1425.7%	—	-1295%
CPHIChina Pharma Holdings Inc.	$4M	9%	-65.3%	-29%	-2%
ATAIAtaiBeckley Inc.	$4M	—	-15751.1%	-356%	-2533%
CGONCG Oncology Inc.	$4M	—	-10067.3%	-21%	-3279%
CRSPCRISPR Therapeutics AG	$4M	—	-1284.9%	-27%	-715%
UPBUpstream Bio Inc.	$3M	—	-3281.2%	-53%	-2500%
Group median	—	—	-1970.9%	-53%	-1719%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

CRISPR Therapeutics AG is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0% Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−9778%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh CRSP against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "CRISPR Therapeutics AG (CRSP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CRSP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CRS its page in the Manual CRSR →

Industry order: ← CLLS the Biotechnology chapter DBVT →