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ESPR, Esperion Therapeutics Inc.

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Esperion is a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company currently focused on bringing new medicines to patients that address unmet medical needs.

Our products were approved by the FDA, European Commission, or EC (which, with respect to the UK, has been converted to a UK marketing authorization), and Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, or Swissmedic in 2020.

We filed supplemental NDAs for product approvals in Canada in November 2024, with NEXLETOL receiving approval in the fourth quarter of 2025 and NEXLIZET approval expected in the first half of 2026.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

ESPR · Esperion Therapeutics Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$403M

+21.3% YoY · 12% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $418M 5-yr avg $201M

Operating margin 18.1% 5-yr avg −125.9%

Owner-earnings margin −4% 5-yr avg −139%

Free cash flow margin −4% 5-yr avg −139%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What it is: Revenue is Collaboration Revenue (60%) and Products (40%).
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.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 16% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −63%) — 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. Inventory runs near 28% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. 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.

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

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Collaboration Revenue is 60% of revenue, with Products the other meaningful line at 40%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Collaboration Revenue60%$244M
Products40%$160M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2018–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
									Income statement
$0	$148M	$228M	$78M	$75M	$116M	$332M	$403M	$418M	RevenueRevenue
—	44%	88%	236%	145%	123%	49%	41%	40%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
—	118%	65%	135%	158%	74%	14%	12%	11%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($205M)	($93M)	($121M)	($227M)	($180M)	($156M)	$54M	$60M	$76M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
—	−62.8%	−53.3%	−289.0%	−237.8%	−133.7%	16.4%	15.0%	18.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($202M)	($97M)	($144M)	($269M)	($234M)	($209M)	($52M)	($23M)	($7M)	Net incomeNet inc.
									Cash flow & returns
($149M)	($70M)	($85M)	($264M)	($175M)	($135M)	($24M)	($13M)	($18M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$265K	$319K	$547K	$612K	$500K	$164K	$63K	$105K	$106K	DepreciationDeprec.
$29M	$621K	$29M	($20M)	$43M	$62M	$16M	($386K)	($21M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$151K	$953K	$869K	$0	$0	$0	$317K	$0	$189K	CapexCapex
—	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($149M)	($71M)	($86M)	($264M)	($175M)	($135M)	($24M)	($13M)	($18M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
—	−47.6%	−37.7%	−336.3%	−231.6%	−116.5%	−7.1%	−3.2%	−4.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($149M)	($71M)	($86M)	($264M)	($175M)	($135M)	($24M)	($13M)	($18M)	Free cash flowFCF
—	−48.1%	−37.8%	−336.3%	−231.6%	−116.5%	−7.2%	−3.2%	−4.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$55M	$0	—	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
									Balance sheet
$37M	$166M	$305M	$259M	$167M	$82M	$145M	$168M	$230M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	—	$12M	$23M	$34M	$48M	$80M	$140M	$132M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$0	$16M	$34M	$35M	$66M	$94M	$105M	$104M	InventoryInvent.
$45M	$29M	$52M	$18M	$23M	$32M	$52M	$65M	$68M	Accounts payablePayables
—	($29M)	($23M)	$40M	$46M	$82M	$123M	$180M	$168M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$143M	$212M	$346M	$329M	$247M	$201M	$338M	$463M	$459M	Current assetsCur. assets
$64M	$66M	$94M	$73M	$92M	$156M	$246M	$301M	$300M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.2×	3.2×	3.7×	4.5×	2.7×	1.3×	1.4×	1.5×	1.5×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$143M	$214M	$353M	$382M	$248M	$206M	$344M	$466M	$463M	Total assetsAssets
—	$0	$179M	$258M	$260M	$262M	$141M	$152M	$153M	Total debtDebt
—	($166M)	($126M)	($1M)	$93M	$179M	($4M)	($16M)	($77M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-7306.6×	-11.5×	-5.4×	-4.9×	-3.2×	-2.6×	0.9×	0.7×	0.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$79M	$20M	($96M)	($197M)	($324M)	($455M)	($389M)	($302M)	($308M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	17.4%	12.5%	31.0%	20.2%	10.3%	3.6%	2.4%	2.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
									Per share
26.8M	27.1M	27.5M	28.9M	66.4M	103M	187M	208M	251M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00	$5.48	$8.28	$2.71	$1.14	$1.13	$1.78	$1.94	$1.66	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-7.54	$-3.59	$-5.23	$-9.31	$-3.52	$-2.03	$-0.28	$-0.11	$-0.03	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-5.56	$-2.61	$-3.12	$-9.13	$-2.63	$-1.31	$-0.13	$-0.06	$-0.07	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-5.56	$-2.63	$-3.13	$-9.13	$-2.63	$-1.31	$-0.13	$-0.06	$-0.07	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.01	$0.04	$0.03	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.96	$0.74	$-3.50	$-6.81	$-4.88	$-4.41	$-2.08	$-1.45	$-1.23	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.3 into 2022 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.55 into 2023 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.82 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count

208Mpeak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($13M)owner earningsvs.($23M)net incomelow FY2021

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 $23M loss into ($13M) 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	($23M)	($52M)	($209M)	($234M)	($269M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$105K	+$63K	+$164K	+$500K	+$612K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$10M	+$12M	+$12M	+$15M	+$24M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$386K	+$16M	+$62M	+$43M	−$20M
Cash from operations	($13M)	($24M)	($135M)	($175M)	($264M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	—	−$63K	—	—	—
Owner earnings	($13M)	($24M)	($135M)	($175M)	($264M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$254K	—	—	—
Free cash flow	($13M)	($24M)	($135M)	($175M)	($264M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-3%	-7%	-116%	-232%	-336%

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 $10M), owner earnings is nearer ($23M).

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

“For example, as previously reported in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, and as described further below and in Item 9A "Controls and Procedures" on this Annual Report on 10-K, we identified a material weakness in our…”

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

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 0.7×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income $60M ÷ interest expense $85M

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? +$16M

Net cash

Cash $168M − debt $152M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $16M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. It also holds $73M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at net cash of $89M. 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 ($318M) = debt $152M + equity ($302M) − cash

Industry peers: median -68%

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 -48%

Consumes cash through the cycle

7-yr median margin, range -336%–-3%; latest ($13M) = operating cash ($13M) − maintenance capex $0

Industry peers: median -45%

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 -3% of revenue this year, a -48% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $10M of SBC) leaves ($23M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($13M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($23M) · cash from operations ($13M)

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
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? 0.00×

Harvesting

Capex $0 ÷ depreciation $105K

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 · 1 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 · $403M

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.54×

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 · $152M vs $162M 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 (8-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 $-0.37/share (latest year $-0.09), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-1.17/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, 2018–2025

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

Profitable years 0 of 8

What this means
Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −135% → −34% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −135% early to −34% lately, median −63% — pricing power intact or improving.
Worst year 2021 · −289.0% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, 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 A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Further, any third-party AI technologies leveraged in our products and services may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all and any loss of rights to use such technologies may significantly increase our expenses or otherwise disrupt or delay the provisioning of our products and services to customers…”

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$459M

Cash & short-term investments$156M
Receivables$132M
Inventory$104M
Other current assets$67M

Current liabilities$300M

Debt due within a year$152K
Accounts payable$68M
Other current liabilities$232M

Current ratio1.53×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.18×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.52×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$159Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$152K due · $156M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Cash runway8.5 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+23.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.0× → 1.5×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($308M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($311M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3M$3M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$44Mcustomer 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
2023	Mr. Koenig	$3.0M	$395k	($135M)
2024	Mr. Koenig	$3.2M	$2.7M	($24M)
2025	Mr. Koenig	$3.5M	$7.1M	($13M)

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 ownership1.6%
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$10M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 16% 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.

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, 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
NATRNature's Sunshine Products Inc.	$480M	73%	4.3%	12%	4%
ZLABZai Lab Limited	$457M	65%	-338.0%	-103%	-281%
INVAInnoviva Inc.	$411M	—	85.6%	44%	63%
ARDXArdelyx Inc.	$407M	87%	-138.7%	-82%	-232%
ESPREsperion Therapeutics Inc.	$403M	—	-62.8%	—	-48%
ARQTArcutis Biotherapeutics Inc.	$376M	90%	-234.9%	-56%	-236%
AVIRAtea Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$351M	—	-51.5%	-80%	-38%
MNKDMannKind Corporation	$349M	72%	-63.3%	—	-45%
Group median	—	—	-63.0%	—	-46%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Esperion Therapeutics Inc. 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, delivered24%/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−4%

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 ESPR against another business →

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

Manual order: ← ESOA its page in the Manual ESQ →

Industry order: ← EOLS the Pharmaceuticals chapter ETON →