Owner Scorecard


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IOVA, Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc.

Biotechnology consumer brand Unprofitable

Our multi-center trials, scalable manufacturing, regulatory approvals and commercial infrastructure have transformed TIL cell therapy from a research product available to only a small number of patients, into a commercially viable treatment that is accessible for thousands of cancer patients.

TIL cell therapies harness the individual immune system's ability to recognize and destroy diverse cancer cells that are unique to each patient.

Our two commercial products include Amtagvi (lifileucel) and Proleukin (aldesleukin), an interleukin-2, or IL-2, product used in the Amtagvi treatment regimen and other applications.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
IOVA · Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$264M
+60.6% YoY
Vital signs · TTM
Cash & investments $313M
Cash burn · annual $271M
Runway 1.2 yrs

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 Amtagvi (83%) and PROLEUKIN (17%).
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.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −241% through the cycle on a 34% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 67% 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 −65%, above 15% in 0 of 8 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Amtagvi is 83% of revenue, with PROLEUKIN the other meaningful line at 17%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Amtagvi83%$220M
  • PROLEUKIN17%$43M
By geographyUnited States98%International2%

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2013–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2013’132014’142015’152016’162017’172018’182023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$0$0$0$0$0$0$1M$164M$264M$286MRevenueRevenue
13%43%34%39%Gross marginGross mgn
n/m93%58%52%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
n/m168%114%100%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($23M)($12M)($28M)($54M)($93M)($128M)($461M)($395M)($403M)($363M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
n/m−240.9%−153.1%−127.2%Operating marginOp. mgn
($25M)($12M)($28M)($53M)($92M)($124M)($444M)($372M)($391M)($354M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($4M)$9M($18M)($33M)($79M)($101M)($362M)($353M)($302M)($271M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$7K$88K$999K$978K$952K$956K$12M$11M$13M$13MDepreciationDeprec.
$19M$17M($243K)$344K$435K$1M$8M($102M)$14M$20MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$13K$2M$1M$2M$1M$1M$22M$11M$34M$34MCapexCapex
n/m6.7%12.8%12.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($4M)$7M($20M)($34M)($80M)($102M)($384M)($364M)($336M)($305M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
n/m−221.9%−127.6%−106.8%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($4M)$7M($20M)($34M)($80M)($102M)($384M)($364M)($336M)($305M)Free cash flowFCF
n/m−221.9%−127.6%−106.8%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-248%-31%-70%-67938%-26%-77%-52%-60%-54%ROICROIC
-144%-27%-27%-32%-63%-27%-76%-52%-56%-49%Return on equityROE
−144%−27%−27%−32%−63%−27%−76%−52%−56%−49%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$20M$45M$104M$166M$145M$469M$280M$324M$297M$313MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$151K$69M$82M$82MReceivablesReceiv.
$10M$52M$52M$58MInventoryInvent.
$413K$1M$958K$863K$1M$3M$33M$28M$22M$37MAccounts payablePayables
($23M)$93M$112M$103MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$20M$45M$104M$170M$149M$475M$308M$457M$443M$467MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$2M$2M$2M$5M$10M$14M$110M$122M$138M$129MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
8.7×27.1×63.8×34.1×15.6×33.0×2.8×3.7×3.2×3.6×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$20M$47M$106M$172M$155M$481M$780M$910M$913M$926MTotal assetsAssets
$9M$1M$1M$9MTotal debtDebt
($10M)($279M)($323M)($304M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$18M$45M$104M$167M$145M$466M$585M$710M$699M$722MShareholders’ equityEquity
n/m66.8%23.4%17.5%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
9.8M25.0M44.4M55.3M65.2M97.3M235M290M357M419KShares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.01$0.57$0.74$682.44Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-2.60$-0.48$-0.62$-0.96$-1.41$-1.27$-1.89$-1.28$-1.09$-845.52EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.38$0.28$-0.44$-0.62$-1.22$-1.05$-1.63$-1.26$-0.94$-728.82Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.38$0.28$-0.44$-0.62$-1.22$-1.05$-1.63$-1.26$-0.94$-728.82Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00$0.06$0.03$0.03$0.02$0.01$0.09$0.04$0.09$81.80Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.80$1.79$2.34$3.02$2.23$4.79$2.49$2.45$1.95$1724.58Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.56 into 2014 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.78 into 2015 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.49 into 2018 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.42 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 ×1/853.85 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
12-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+1107.6%/yr (2-yr)
Capital spending / share+42.7%/yr−0.1%/yr (2-yr)
Book value / share+0.7%/yr−11.3%/yr (2-yr)

The record, charted

FY2013–2025

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

Share count
357Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
−60%low FY2017
Gross margin
34%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($336M)owner earningsvs.($391M)net incomelow FY2023

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 $391M loss into ($336M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2018FY2017
Reported net income($391M)($372M)($444M)($124M)($92M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$13M+$11M+$12M+$956K+$952K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$62M+$110M+$63M+$20M+$12M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$14M−$102M+$8M+$1M+$435K
Cash from operations($302M)($353M)($362M)($101M)($79M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$34M−$11M−$22M−$1M−$1M
Owner earnings($336M)($364M)($384M)($102M)($80M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-128%-222%-32305%

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 $62M), owner earnings is nearer ($398M).

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?

  • 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.

  • Net cash
    Cash $163M + ST investments $134M − debt $9M
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $288M, 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.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 114 + DIO 109 − DPO 47 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    8-yr median, range -67938%–-26%; -58% latest = NOPAT ($319M) ÷ invested capital $545M
    Industry peers: median -39%
    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 8 years (it ran -58% 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.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    3-yr median margin, range -32305%–-128%; latest ($336M) = operating cash ($302M) − maintenance capex $34M
    Industry peers: median -92%
    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 -128% of revenue this year, a -222% median across 3 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $62M of SBC) leaves ($398M).

  • Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($391M) · cash from operations ($302M)
    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?

  • Not enough data
    What this means

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

  • Investing or harvesting? 2.63×
    Expanding
    Capex $34M ÷ depreciation $13M
    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 · $264M
    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× · 3.20×
    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 · $9M vs $304M 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 (9-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 $-0.90/share (latest year $-0.88), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $1.56/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, 2013–2025

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

  • Profitable years 0 of 9
    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 −241% (median, 3 yrs)

    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

    Over the 3 years on record the operating margin has run around −241% — too short a record to call a through-cycle trend, but that is the level the business earns at.

  • 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 2023 · −38735.0% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2023, 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.

“If we fail to obtain protection for intellectual property rights for any of our intellectual property that may incorporate or be developed using AI technologies, or later have our intellectual property rights invalidated or otherwise diminished, our competitors may be able to take advantage of our research and developm…”

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$467M
  • Cash & short-term investments$313M
  • Receivables$82M
  • Inventory$58M
  • Other current assets$13M
Current liabilities$129M
  • Accounts payable$37M
  • Other current liabilities$92M
Current ratio3.60×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio3.15×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio2.42×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$337Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Cash runway1.0 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+44.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters5.2× → 3.6×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$453Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$263MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$47M$47M of it operating leases

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
2021Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$3.2M$3.2M
2021Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$7.0M−$2.5M
2022Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$5.3M−$173k
2023Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$4.8M$5.2M($384M)
2024Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$11.0M$7.0M($364M)
2025Frederick G. Vogt, Ph.D., J.D.$1.9M−$1.6M($336M)

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 ownership7.8%

    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$62M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 23% 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, 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
IMCRImmunocore Holdings plc$400M99%-23.9%-3%
KRYSKrystal Biotech$389M22.6%-21%41%
TWSTTwist Bioscience Corporation$377M38%-115.4%-51%-92%
ADPTAdaptive Biotechnologies Corporation$277M68%-108.0%-32%-97%
VCELVericel Corporation$276M67%-4.7%-4%10%
IOVAIovance Biotherapeutics Inc.$264M34%-240.9%-65%-222%
RGNXREGENXBIO Inc.$170M68%-256.6%-47%-203%
DNAGinkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc.$170M-246.5%-351%-105%
Group median68%-111.7%-47%-95%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Iovance Biotherapeutics 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.

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The assumptions

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach
Margin the price demands
Owner-earnings margin today−107%

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.

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

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