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XFOR, X4 Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Biotechnology consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundNet current asset value

We are a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing novel therapeutics for the treatment of rare hematology diseases.

As of December 31, 2025, we had $ 253.0 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

XFOR · X4 Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$35M

+1273.2% YoY · 64% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM

Cash & investments $217M

Cash burn · annual $93M

Runway 2.3 yrs

Gross margin 82%

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 License and other revenue (81%) and Products (19%).
Situation: Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. 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. 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 run around −1424% 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 181% 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 −175%, above 15% in 0 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

License and other revenue is 81% of revenue, with Products the other meaningful line at 19%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

License and other revenue81%$29M
Products19%$7M

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	$0	$3M	$0	$0	$0	$3M	$35M	$9M	RevenueRevenue
—	—	—	—	—	—	69%	84%	82%	Gross marginGross mgn
—	—	698%	—	—	—	n/m	124%	393%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
—	—	n/m	—	—	—	n/m	207%	773%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($29M)	($52M)	($60M)	($85M)	($88M)	($108M)	($36M)	($87M)	($98M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
—	—	n/m	—	—	—	n/m	−247.4%	n/m	Operating marginOp. mgn
($33M)	($53M)	($62M)	($89M)	($94M)	($101M)	($37M)	($79M)	($100M)	Net incomeNet inc.
									Cash flow & returns
($25M)	($48M)	($59M)	($71M)	($77M)	($97M)	($131M)	($86M)	($93M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$103K	$103K	$351K	$499K	$513K	$419K	$796K	$1M	$1M	DepreciationDeprec.
$7M	$3M	($2M)	$11M	$11M	($4M)	($102M)	($12M)	($343K)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$0	$174K	$1M	$615K	$103K	$60K	$326K	$0	$0	CapexCapex
—	—	45.4%	—	—	—	12.7%	0.0%	0.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($25M)	($48M)	($59M)	($72M)	($77M)	($97M)	($131M)	($86M)	($93M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
—	—	n/m	—	—	—	n/m	−243.8%	n/m	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($25M)	($48M)	($60M)	($72M)	($77M)	($97M)	($131M)	($86M)	($93M)	Free cash flowFCF
—	—	n/m	—	—	—	n/m	−243.8%	n/m	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$0	$0	$2M	$0	$0	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	-177%	-173%	-406%	—	-1316%	-69%	-155%	-291%	ROICROIC
—	-41%	-85%	-138%	-127%	-198%	-169%	-43%	-59%	Return on equityROE
—	−41%	−85%	−138%	−127%	−198%	−169%	−43%	−59%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
									Balance sheet
$8M	$126M	$79M	$82M	$122M	$99M	$56M	$217M	$217M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	—	—	—	—	$0	$1M	$573K	$1M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	—	—	—	—	$0	$3M	—	$3M	InventoryInvent.
$3M	$2M	$3M	$4M	$8M	$9M	$9M	$6M	$5M	Accounts payablePayables
—	—	—	—	—	($9M)	($5M)	($5M)	($1M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$9M	$129M	$83M	$88M	$129M	$122M	$112M	$262M	$242M	Current assetsCur. assets
$8M	$9M	$12M	$14M	$22M	$23M	$33M	$26M	$24M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.2×	13.7×	7.0×	6.3×	5.8×	5.3×	3.4×	10.2×	10.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$0	$27M	$27M	$17M	$17M	$17M	$17M	$17M	$17M	GoodwillGoodwill
$10M	$161M	$123M	$117M	$156M	$147M	$146M	$290M	$270M	Total assetsAssets
$10M	$20M	$33M	$34M	$34M	$55M	$75M	$75M	$75M	Total debtDebt
$2M	($106M)	($46M)	($48M)	($88M)	($45M)	$19M	($142M)	($142M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-40.4×	-24.1×	-22.3×	-23.4×	-21.9×	-18.6×	-4.2×	-9.8×	-11.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($77M)	$129M	$73M	$64M	$74M	$51M	$22M	$186M	$168M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	—	180.9%	—	—	—	320.8%	12.2%	68.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
									Per share
459K	11.5M	20.1M	25.7M	63.5M	5.9M	6.7M	42.3M	126M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00	$0.00	$0.15	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.38	$0.83	$0.07	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-72.52	$-4.58	$-3.09	$-3.44	$-1.48	$-17.07	$-5.59	$-1.87	$-0.79	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-55.38	$-4.18	$-2.95	$-2.78	$-1.22	$-16.29	$-19.58	$-2.02	$-0.74	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-55.38	$-4.18	$-3.00	$-2.78	$-1.22	$-16.29	$-19.58	$-2.02	$-0.74	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.02	$0.07	$0.02	$0.00	$0.01	$0.05	$0.00	$0.00	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-167.94	$11.21	$3.63	$2.50	$1.17	$8.62	$3.30	$4.40	$1.33	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×25.12 into 2019 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.74 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.47 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 ×1/10.72 into 2023 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×6.31 into 2025 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.99 into TTM — 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

	7-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	—	+40.9%/yr
Book value / share	—	+4.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count

42Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

−155%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.

($86M)owner earningsvs.($79M)net incomelow FY2024

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 reported a $79M loss but ($86M) of owner earnings: $6M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($79M)	($37M)	($101M)	($94M)	($89M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1M	+$796K	+$419K	+$513K	+$499K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$4M	+$8M	+$9M	+$5M	+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$12M	−$102M	−$4M	+$11M	+$11M
Cash from operations	($86M)	($131M)	($97M)	($77M)	($71M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	—	−$326K	−$60K	−$103K	−$615K
Owner earnings	($86M)	($131M)	($97M)	($77M)	($72M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-244%	-5132%	—	—	—

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 $4M), owner earnings is nearer ($90M).

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? -9.8×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($87M) ÷ interest expense $9M

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? +$142M

Net cash

Cash $217M − debt $75M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $142M, 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? -177d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 6 + DIO 179 − DPO 361 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -177%

Below average through the cycle

6-yr median, range -1316%–-69%; -155% latest = NOPAT ($69M) ÷ invested capital $44M

Industry peers: median -45%

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 -155% 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 -1972%

Consumes cash through the cycle

3-yr median margin, range -5132%–-244%; latest ($86M) = operating cash ($86M) − maintenance capex $0

Industry peers: median -276%

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 -244% of revenue this year, a -1972% median across 3 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $4M of SBC) leaves ($90M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($86M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($79M) · cash from operations ($86M)

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 $1M

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 · $35M

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× · 10.16×

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 · $75M vs $236M 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 $-0.77/share (latest year $-0.84), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $1.98/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.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 6 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 −1424% (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 −1424% — too short a record to call a through-cycle trend, but that is the level the business earns at.
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 2020 · −1995.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, 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$242M

Cash & short-term investments$217M
Receivables$1M
Inventory$3M
Other current assets$21M

Current liabilities$24M

Accounts payable$5M
Other current liabilities$19M

Current ratio10.18×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio10.06×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio9.12×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$218Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway2.3 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+177.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters6.1× → 10.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$142Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$140MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$76M$733K of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$1Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 8-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$27M9% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity9%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$0over 8 years buying other businesses, against $3M of capital spent building

$10M written down across 1 year (2021): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 8-year record, from the company's own filings.

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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2023	$2.0M	$1.3M	($97M)
2024	$2.1M	$1.4M	($131M)
2025	$6.7M	$16.3M	($86M)
2025	$2.6M	$545k	($86M)

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 ownership1.1%
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$4M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 12% 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.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
VIRVir Biotechnology Inc.	$69M	99%	-791.3%	-45%	-611%
PLXProtalix BioTherapeutics Inc. (DE)	$53M	58%	-23.5%	-1%	-33%
FENCFennec Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$45M	97%	-60.1%	-28%	-28%
KYMRKymera Therapeutics Inc.	$39M	0%	-344.4%	-26%	-179%
CCCCC4 Therapeutics Inc.	$36M	—	-336.1%	-50%	-276%
XFORX4 Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$35M	84%	-1423.6%	-175%	-1972%
RCUSArcus Biosciences Inc.	$33M	—	-656.8%	-55%	-503%
VSTMVerastem Inc.	$31M	99%	-758.1%	-78%	-794%
Group median	—	90%	-500.6%	-47%	-389%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

X4 Pharmaceuticals 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% Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−1030%

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 XFOR against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "X4 Pharmaceuticals Inc. (XFOR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/XFOR, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← XERS its page in the Manual XHR →

Industry order: ← VIR the Biotechnology chapter