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RARE, Ultragenyx

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand Unprofitable

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc., we or the Company, is a biopharmaceutical company committed to bringing novel products to patients for the treatment of serious rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases.

Approved Therapies and Clinical Product Candidates Our current approved therapies and clinical-stage pipeline consist of four product categories: biologics, small molecules, AAV gene therapy, and nucleic acid product candidates.

Business" above for a description of our approved products and our clinical stage pipeline products.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

RARE · Ultragenyx

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$673M

+20.2% YoY · 20% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $670M 5-yr avg $476M

Operating margin −83.7% 5-yr avg −118.7%

Owner-earnings margin −75% 5-yr avg −94%

Free cash flow margin −75% 5-yr avg −104%

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 Products (55%) and Royalty (45%).
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 −179% through the cycle, 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 2604% 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 −92%, above 15% in 0 of 9 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 →

Revenue spreads across 3 lines, the largest Products at 55%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Products55%$369M
Royalty45%$304M
Collaboration and license0%$0

By geographyNorth America56%Latin America25%EMEA16%Asia Pacific3%

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, 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
$133K	$3M	$51M	$104M	$271M	$351M	$363M	$434M	$560M	$673M	$670M	RevenueRevenue
n/m	n/m	248%	156%	67%	63%	77%	71%	57%	52%	52%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
n/m	n/m	571%	345%	152%	141%	194%	149%	125%	111%	115%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($248M)	($329M)	($371M)	($424M)	($330M)	($382M)	($649M)	($569M)	($536M)	($535M)	($561M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
n/m	n/m	−721.2%	−409.0%	−121.8%	−108.6%	−178.6%	−131.1%	−95.7%	−79.5%	−83.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($246M)	($302M)	($198M)	($403M)	($187M)	($454M)	($707M)	($607M)	($569M)	($575M)	($609M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
($161M)	($254M)	($291M)	($345M)	($132M)	($339M)	($380M)	($475M)	($414M)	($466M)	($497M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$3M	$6M	$20M	$9M	$12M	$13M	$18M	$26M	$36M	$35M	$34M	DepreciationDeprec.
$33M	($26M)	($112M)	$49M	$42M	$102M	$309M	$106M	$119M	$74M	$3M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$10M	$3M	$4M	$25M	$44M	$73M	$116M	$44M	$7M	$6M	$6M	CapexCapex
n/m	106.9%	7.9%	23.9%	16.2%	20.8%	32.0%	10.1%	1.3%	0.9%	0.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($164M)	($257M)	($295M)	($354M)	($144M)	($352M)	($399M)	($501M)	($421M)	($472M)	($503M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
n/m	n/m	−572.2%	−341.2%	−53.3%	−100.2%	−109.7%	−115.4%	−75.2%	−70.1%	−75.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($171M)	($257M)	($295M)	($370M)	($176M)	($412M)	($497M)	($519M)	($421M)	($472M)	($503M)	Free cash flowFCF
n/m	n/m	−572.2%	−357.0%	−65.0%	−117.2%	−136.7%	−119.6%	−75.2%	−70.1%	−75.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$143M	—	—	$0	$0	$75M	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
-63%	-92%	-59%	-152%	-59%	-49%	-234%	-737%	-523%	—	—	ROICROIC
-52%	-79%	-32%	-62%	-16%	-49%	-201%	-221%	-223%	—	—	Return on equityROE
−52%	−79%	−32%	−62%	−16%	−49%	−201%	−221%	−223%	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$380M	$234M	$460M	$755M	$714M	$308M	$133M	$214M	$174M	$421M	$743M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$5M	$13M	$33M	$23M	$28M	$40M	$73M	$122M	$158M	$121M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$757K	$7M	$12M	$13M	$16M	$27M	$34M	$45M	$52M	$55M	InventoryInvent.
$5M	$9M	$12M	$13M	$13M	$17M	$43M	$42M	$39M	$31M	$42M	Accounts payablePayables
—	($3M)	$8M	$32M	$23M	$28M	$24M	$65M	$128M	$179M	$134M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$402M	$270M	$522M	$851M	$1.3B	$857M	$884M	$732M	$817M	$951M	$657M	Current assetsCur. assets
$60M	$71M	$75M	$103M	$190M	$181M	$261M	$280M	$344M	$384M	$325M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
6.7×	3.8×	7.0×	8.2×	6.8×	4.7×	3.4×	2.6×	2.4×	2.5×	2.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	$44M	GoodwillGoodwill
$541M	$491M	$720M	$1.1B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.3B	Total assetsAssets
($380M)	($234M)	($460M)	($755M)	($714M)	($308M)	($133M)	($214M)	($174M)	($421M)	($743M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$474M	$383M	$609M	$654M	$1.2B	$923M	$352M	$275M	$255M	($80M)	($236M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
n/m	n/m	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	11.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
39.6M	42.5M	49.8M	56.6M	60.8M	67.8M	69.9M	73.5M	90.5M	98.6M	101M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00	$0.06	$1.03	$1.83	$4.45	$5.18	$5.20	$5.90	$6.19	$6.83	$6.66	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-6.21	$-7.12	$-3.97	$-7.12	$-3.07	$-6.70	$-10.12	$-8.26	$-6.29	$-5.83	$-6.05	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-4.15	$-6.05	$-5.92	$-6.26	$-2.37	$-5.19	$-5.70	$-6.82	$-4.65	$-4.79	$-5.00	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-4.32	$-6.05	$-5.92	$-6.54	$-2.89	$-6.07	$-7.10	$-7.06	$-4.65	$-4.79	$-5.00	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.26	$0.07	$0.08	$0.44	$0.72	$1.08	$1.66	$0.60	$0.08	$0.06	$0.06	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$11.97	$9.03	$12.23	$11.56	$18.97	$13.61	$5.03	$3.74	$2.82	$-0.81	$-2.35	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+133.1%/yr	+8.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	−14.8%/yr	−39.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

99Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−523%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.

($472M)owner earningsvs.($575M)net incomelow FY2023

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 $575M loss into ($472M) 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	($575M)	($569M)	($607M)	($707M)	($454M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$35M	+$36M	+$26M	+$18M	+$13M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$74M	+$119M	+$106M	+$309M	+$102M
Cash from operations	($466M)	($414M)	($475M)	($380M)	($339M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$6M	−$7M	−$26M	−$18M	−$13M
Owner earnings	($472M)	($421M)	($501M)	($399M)	($352M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	−$18M	−$98M	−$60M
Free cash flow	($472M)	($421M)	($519M)	($497M)	($412M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-70%	-75%	-115%	-110%	-100%

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 .

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? +$743M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $421M + ST investments $322M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $743M, 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? 6774d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 86 + DIO 16562 − DPO 9873 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?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median -2%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin -115%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -123608%–-53%; latest ($472M) = operating cash ($466M) − maintenance capex $6M

Industry peers: median 5%

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 -70% of revenue this year, a -115% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $68M of SBC) leaves ($540M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($466M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($575M) · cash from operations ($466M)

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? 0.17×

Harvesting

Capex $6M ÷ depreciation $35M

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 4 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 · $673M

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× · 2.48×

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.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 10 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 $-5.93/share (latest year $-5.84), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.81/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 0 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 10 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −66595% → −102% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −66595% early to −102% lately, median −179% — pricing power intact or improving.
Worst year 2016 · −186471.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2016, 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.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

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

“We face intense competition and rapid technological change, including the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, and the possibility that our competitors may develop therapies that are similar, more advanced, or more effective than ours, which may adversely affect our financial condition and our ability to successfully…”

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$657M

Cash & short-term investments$743M
Receivables$121M
Inventory$55M

Current liabilities$325M

Accounts payable$42M
Other current liabilities$283M

Current ratio2.02×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.85×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.29×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$332Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway1.5 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−2.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters3.5× → 2.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($454M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($868M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$36M$36M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$4Mcustomer 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	Dr. Kakkis	$9.5M	−$2.2M	($352M)
2022	Dr. Kakkis	$12.1M	$3.3M	($399M)
2023	Dr. Kakkis	$13.1M	$11.3M	($501M)
2024	Dr. Kakkis	$13.7M	$8.2M	($421M)
2025	Dr. Kakkis	$11.4M	−$1.3M	($472M)

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 ownership5.2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio38:1
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$68M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 10% 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
EBSEmergent BioSolutions Inc.	$743M	58%	12.5%	6%	8%
PCRXPacira BioSciences	$726M	73%	3.7%	2%	16%
SUPNSupernus Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$719M	90%	20.0%	11%	26%
KNSAKiniksa Pharmaceuticals International, PLC	$678M	88%	-9.3%	-6%	5%
RAREUltragenyx	$673M	100%	-154.9%	-92%	-113%
AXSMAxsome Therapeutics Inc.	$638M	99%	-79.2%	—	-44%
TGTXTG Therapeutics Inc.	$616M	88%	-29896.1%	-572%	-23443%
OPKOPKO Health Inc.	$607M	34%	-18.8%	-8%	-13%
Group median	—	88%	-14.0%	-6%	-4%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Ultragenyx 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, delivered19%/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−75%

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 RARE against another business →

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

Manual order: ← RAMP its page in the Manual RBA →

Industry order: ← RADX the Pharmaceuticals chapter RCUS →