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CYTK, Cytokinetics

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCapital build-out

We are a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel muscle activators and muscle inhibitors as potential treatments for debilitating diseases in which muscle performance is compromised and/or declining.

Our first commercial product is MYQORZO (aficamten), 5 mg, 10 mg, 15 mg, and 20 mg tablets, which the FDA approved in December 2025.

Moreover, in December 2025, the China National Medical Products Administration approved MYQORZO for the treatment of adults with (New York Heart Association class II-III) oHCM, to improve exercise capacity and symptoms.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CYTK · Cytokinetics

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$88M

+376.6% YoY · 10% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM

Cash & investments $321M

Cash burn · annual $524M

Runway 7 mo

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 sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 28% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 18% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −368%) — 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 40% 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 −97%, above 15% in 1 of 5 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
$106M	$13M	$32M	$27M	$56M	$70M	$95M	$8M	$18M	$88M	$106M	RevenueRevenue
26%	273%	99%	147%	95%	137%	188%	n/m	n/m	323%	314%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
56%	675%	283%	321%	174%	227%	255%	n/m	n/m	473%	391%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$19M	($113M)	($89M)	($99M)	($94M)	($186M)	($324M)	($496M)	($536M)	($612M)	($640M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
17.6%	−848.3%	−282.3%	−368.0%	−168.3%	−264.5%	−342.8%	n/m	n/m	−695.4%	−605.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$16M	($128M)	($106M)	($122M)	($127M)	($215M)	($389M)	($526M)	($590M)	($785M)	($830M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
$37M	($102M)	($101M)	($91M)	$9M	($143M)	($300M)	($414M)	($396M)	($510M)	($524M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$741K	$2M	$1M	$1M	$2M	$2M	$6M	$12M	$10M	$10M	$11M	DepreciationDeprec.
$13M	$15M	($6M)	$19M	$117M	$44M	$36M	$28M	$86M	$153M	$175M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$3M	$889K	$3M	$11M	$49M	$11M	$1M	$4M	$25M	$25M	CapexCapex
1.5%	21.5%	2.8%	9.7%	19.8%	69.4%	12.0%	18.8%	21.1%	28.2%	23.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$35M	($105M)	($102M)	($94M)	($2M)	($191M)	($311M)	($416M)	($400M)	($535M)	($549M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
33.3%	−782.7%	−324.1%	−348.1%	−3.8%	−271.8%	−328.6%	n/m	n/m	−607.5%	−518.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$35M	($105M)	($102M)	($94M)	($2M)	($191M)	($311M)	($416M)	($400M)	($535M)	($549M)	Free cash flowFCF
33.3%	−782.7%	−324.1%	−348.1%	−3.8%	−271.8%	−328.6%	n/m	n/m	−607.5%	−518.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
33%	-546%	-269%	—	-97%	-82%	—	—	—	—	—	ROICROIC
17%	-116%	-410%	—	-112%	-88%	—	—	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
17%	−116%	−410%	—	−112%	−88%	—	—	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$75M	$142M	$42M	$79M	$120M	$113M	$66M	$113M	$95M	$123M	$321M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$24K	$1M	$2M	$5M	$4M	$52M	$147K	$1M	$17M	$18M	$7M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$4M	$5M	$4M	$8M	$8M	$21M	$26M	$22M	$20M	$22M	$25M	Accounts payablePayables
($4M)	($4M)	($2M)	($3M)	($4M)	$31M	($25M)	($20M)	($4M)	($5M)	($18M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$159M	$274M	$208M	$234M	$474M	$536M	$795M	$628M	$1.1B	$917M	$839M	Current assetsCur. assets
$33M	$32M	$22M	$26M	$31M	$72M	$85M	$103M	$180M	$202M	$199M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
4.8×	8.5×	9.4×	9.0×	15.2×	7.5×	9.4×	6.1×	6.2×	4.5×	4.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$170M	$295M	$211M	$290M	$534M	$841M	$1.0B	$824M	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.3B	Total assetsAssets
$30M	$32M	$42M	$45M	$46M	$47M	$65M	$68M	$105M	$288M	$292M	Total debtDebt
($45M)	($110M)	$157K	($34M)	($74M)	($65M)	($814K)	($45M)	$10M	$165M	($29M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
6.9×	-37.6×	-23.4×	-14.9×	-5.9×	-11.3×	-16.7×	-17.5×	-14.2×	-13.4×	-14.0×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$94M	$110M	$26M	($11M)	$113M	$244M	($108M)	($386M)	($135M)	($660M)	($827M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
6.7%	67.5%	31.0%	40.0%	31.6%	38.1%	50.6%	957.0%	529.6%	127.5%	112.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
42.6M	49.4M	54.4M	57.6M	64.5M	76.9M	89.8M	96.5M	112M	120M	123K	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$2.50	$0.27	$0.58	$0.47	$0.87	$0.92	$1.05	$0.08	$0.16	$0.73	$858.38	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.39	$-2.59	$-1.95	$-2.11	$-1.97	$-2.80	$-4.33	$-5.45	$-5.26	$-6.54	$-6729.86	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.83	$-2.12	$-1.88	$-1.62	$-0.03	$-2.49	$-3.46	$-4.31	$-3.57	$-4.45	$-4452.90	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.83	$-2.12	$-1.88	$-1.62	$-0.03	$-2.49	$-3.46	$-4.31	$-3.57	$-4.45	$-4452.90	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.04	$0.06	$0.02	$0.05	$0.17	$0.64	$0.13	$0.01	$0.03	$0.21	$203.39	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.22	$2.22	$0.48	$-0.19	$1.76	$3.17	$-1.20	$-4.00	$-1.21	$-5.49	$-6705.18	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/974.28 into TTM — shares retired, 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	−12.7%/yr	−3.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	+20.9%/yr	+3.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

120Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−82%low FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($535M)owner earningsvs.($785M)net incomelow FY2025

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 $785M loss into ($535M) 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	($785M)	($590M)	($526M)	($389M)	($215M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$10M	+$10M	+$12M	+$6M	+$2M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$112M	+$98M	+$72M	+$48M	+$27M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$153M	+$86M	+$28M	+$36M	+$44M
Cash from operations	($510M)	($396M)	($414M)	($300M)	($143M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$25M	−$4M	−$1M	−$11M	−$49M
Owner earnings	($535M)	($400M)	($416M)	($311M)	($191M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-607%	-2164%	-5521%	-329%	-272%

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 $112M), owner earnings is nearer ($647M).

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? -13.4×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($612M) ÷ interest expense $46M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $165M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $123M − debt $288M

What this means
Netting $123M of cash and short-term investments against $288M of debt leaves $165M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. It also holds $37M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at $128M of net debt. 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 —

Not meaningful here

Invested capital ($495M) = debt $288M + equity ($660M) − cash

Industry peers: median -61%

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.
Owner-earnings margin -348%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -5521%–33%; latest ($535M) = operating cash ($510M) − maintenance capex $25M

Industry peers: median -96%

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 -607% of revenue this year, a -348% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $112M of SBC) leaves ($647M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($510M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($785M) · cash from operations ($510M)

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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 2.45×

Expanding

Capex $25M ÷ depreciation $10M

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 · $88M

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× · 4.53×

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 · $288M vs $715M 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 $-5.09/share (latest year $-6.31), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-5.30/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% 1 of 5 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 −371% → −3396% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −371% early to −3396% lately, median −368% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC —

What this means
The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.
Worst year 2023 · −6589.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.

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.

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.

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$839M

Cash & short-term investments$130M
Receivables$7M
Inventory$154K
Other current assets$703M

Current liabilities$199M

Debt due within a year$45M
Accounts payable$25M
Other current liabilities$130M

Current ratio4.21×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio4.21×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.65×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$640Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$45M due · $130M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Cash runway0.2 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+1125.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters10.4× → 4.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($827M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$418M$126M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$2Mcustomer 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	Mr. Blum	$6.4M	$19.9M	($191M)
2022	Mr. Blum	$8.5M	$8.7M	($311M)
2023	Mr. Blum	$8.7M	$20.7M	($416M)
2024	Mr. Blum	$14.4M	−$1.7M	($400M)
2025	Mr. Blum	$11.9M	$15.8M	($535M)

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 ownership2.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio28:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$112M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 128% 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.

Peers, Pharmaceuticals

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
CYTKCytokinetics	$88M	—	-355.4%	-97%	-338%
SPRYARS Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$84M	—	-353.3%	-39%	-320%
NRIXNurix Therapeutics Inc.	$84M	—	-364.7%	-51%	-293%
ARCTArcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc.	$82M	—	-107.8%	-71%	-65%
ADCTADC Therapeutics SA	$81M	93%	-174.6%	—	-176%
ETONEton Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$80M	60%	-6.8%	-108%	2%
KURAKura Oncology Inc.	$67M	—	-449.9%	-77%	-96%
ENTAEnanta Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$65M	—	-73.4%	-17%	-22%
Group median	—	—	-263.9%	-71%	-136%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Cytokinetics 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%

Revenue, delivered−11%/yr’20→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−519%

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 CYTK against another business →

The owners of CYTK: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← CYRX its page in the Manual CZFS →

Industry order: ← CYRX the Pharmaceuticals chapter DMAC →