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ZVRA, Zevra Therapeutics Inc.

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand Distress / turnaround

Revenue is MIPLYFFA (82%) and OLPRUVA (1%).

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

ZVRA · Zevra Therapeutics Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$106M

+350.9% YoY · 52% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $122M 5-yr avg $39M

Operating margin −4.4% 5-yr avg −200.0%

ROIC −3% 5-yr avg −115%

Owner-earnings margin 10% 5-yr avg −114%

Free cash flow margin 10% 5-yr avg −114%

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: A pharmaceutical business, where patents grant a temporary monopoly the pipeline must keep refilling.
Situation: 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 27% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −158%) on a 89% gross margin — 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 22% 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 −127%, above 15% in 0 of 4 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 →

MIPLYFFA is 82% of revenue, so this is largely a single-line business.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

MIPLYFFA82%$87M
OLPRUVA1%$800K

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	$13M	$13M	$29M	$10M	$27M	$24M	$106M	$122M	RevenueRevenue
—	84%	60%	30%	148%	125%	232%	73%	64%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
—	151%	67%	35%	195%	145%	178%	12%	11%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($56M)	($20M)	($6M)	$8M	($43M)	($50M)	($87M)	($63M)	($5M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
—	−158.4%	−42.2%	27.0%	−418.9%	−180.6%	−368.5%	−59.1%	−4.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($56M)	($25M)	($13M)	($9M)	($27M)	($46M)	($106M)	$83M	$124M	Net incomeNet inc.
									Cash flow & returns
($54M)	($24M)	($2M)	$10M	($19M)	($34M)	($70M)	($2M)	$13M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$324K	$304K	$273K	$257K	$944K	$1M	$6M	$4M	$3M	DepreciationDeprec.
($5M)	($4M)	$8M	$16M	$3M	$6M	$15M	($102M)	($127M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$21K	$26K	$33K	$102K	$93K	$296K	$0	$835K	$771K	CapexCapex
—	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.9%	1.1%	0.0%	0.8%	0.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($54M)	($24M)	($2M)	$10M	($19M)	($34M)	($70M)	($2M)	$12M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
—	−185.1%	−14.8%	36.1%	−185.1%	−123.2%	−295.0%	−2.3%	9.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($54M)	($24M)	($2M)	$10M	($19M)	($34M)	($70M)	($2M)	$12M	Free cash flowFCF
—	−185.1%	−14.8%	36.1%	−185.1%	−123.2%	−295.0%	−2.3%	9.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	—	$0	$14M	$30M	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	$0	$3M	$5M	$3M	$0	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	—	—	-150%	-164%	-105%	-39%	-3%	ROICROIC
—	—	—	-8%	-36%	-74%	-266%	54%	60%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	−8%	−36%	−74%	−266%	54%	60%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
									Balance sheet
$22M	$3M	$4M	$112M	$66M	$43M	$34M	$62M	$96M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$0	$2M	$2M	$1M	$7M	$16M	$10M	—	$10M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	—	—	—	$671K	$0	$2M	$2M	$2M	InventoryInvent.
$4M	$1M	$1M	$516K	$4M	$14M	$13M	$2M	$12M	Accounts payablePayables
($4M)	$541K	$1M	$905K	$4M	$2M	($929K)	($738K)	$798K	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$24M	$7M	$8M	$115M	$93M	$87M	$86M	$223M	$230M	Current assetsCur. assets
$12M	$5M	$8M	$4M	$12M	$74M	$34M	$39M	$47M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×	1.3×	1.1×	27.2×	7.7×	1.2×	2.5×	5.7×	4.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	—	—	—	$0	$5M	$5M	$5M	$5M	GoodwillGoodwill
$27M	$11M	$11M	$133M	$115M	$172M	$178M	$285M	$279M	Total assetsAssets
$81M	$77M	$68M	$0	$13M	$5M	$60M	$62M	$60M	Total debtDebt
$60M	$74M	$63M	($112M)	($53M)	($38M)	$26M	($478K)	($36M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-10.2×	-4.2×	-1.2×	34.2×	-127.1×	-33.0×	-11.8×	-7.9×	-0.7×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($67M)	($74M)	($66M)	$102M	$75M	$62M	$40M	$155M	$206M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	34.3%	18.7%	8.5%	42.3%	21.7%	63.1%	11.9%	10.3%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
									Per share
17.9M	1.9M	4.0M	29.8M	34.5M	35.5M	46.3M	57.3M	60.2M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00	$6.93	$3.34	$0.96	$0.29	$0.77	$0.51	$1.86	$2.03	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-3.15	$-13.23	$-3.21	$-0.29	$-0.78	$-1.30	$-2.28	$1.45	$2.06	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-3.02	$-12.82	$-0.50	$0.35	$-0.55	$-0.95	$-1.51	$-0.04	$0.20	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-3.02	$-12.82	$-0.50	$0.35	$-0.55	$-0.95	$-1.51	$-0.04	$0.20	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.01	$0.01	$0.00	$0.00	$0.01	$0.00	$0.01	$0.01	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-3.71	$-40.17	$-16.68	$3.42	$2.18	$1.74	$0.86	$2.70	$3.42	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/9.67 into 2019 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.15 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 ×7.48 into 2021 — 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	—	−11.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	+43.4%/yr	+12.0%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Revenue+350.9%
“Revenue, net Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025, was $106.5 million, compared to revenue of $23.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, an increase of approximately $82.9 million. The increase was primarily attributable to an increase in product sales of MIPLYFFA of $77.3 million and an increase in revenues under the global EAP of $3.9 million.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count

57Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−39%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.

($2M)owner earningsvs.$83Mnet 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 $83M of profit but ($2M) of owner earnings: $86M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$83M	($106M)	($46M)	($27M)	($9M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$4M	+$6M	+$1M	+$944K	+$257K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$13M	+$15M	+$6M	+$4M	+$2M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$102M	+$15M	+$6M	+$3M	+$16M
Cash from operations	($2M)	($70M)	($34M)	($19M)	$10M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$835K	—	−$296K	−$93K	−$102K
Owner earnings	($2M)	($70M)	($34M)	($19M)	$10M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-2%	-295%	-123%	-185%	36%

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 $13M), owner earnings is nearer ($15M).

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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? -7.9×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($63M) ÷ interest expense $8M

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? +$478K

Net cash

Cash $62M − debt $62M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $478K, 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? -57d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 35 + DIO 216 − DPO 307 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 -150%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range -164%–-39%; -39% latest = NOPAT ($60M) ÷ invested capital $154M

Industry peers: median -38%

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 4 years (it ran -39% 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 -123%

Consumes cash through the cycle

7-yr median margin, range -295%–36%; latest ($2M) = operating cash ($2M) − maintenance capex $835K

Industry peers: median -153%

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 -2% of revenue this year, a -123% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $13M of SBC) leaves ($15M).
Are earnings backed by cash? -0.02×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops ($2M) ÷ net income $83M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

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? 0.21×

Harvesting

Capex $835K ÷ depreciation $4M

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 · $106M

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× · 5.68×

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 · $62M vs $184M 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) · 7 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 $-0.39/share (latest year $1.41), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.62/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 1 of 8

What this means
Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 4 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 −58% → −203% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
The recent-years average (−203%) sits below the early years (−58%), but the latest year (−59%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is −158% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.
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 2022 · −418.9% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, 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 Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

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$230M

Cash & short-term investments$96M
Receivables$10M
Inventory$2M
Other current assets$122M

Current liabilities$47M

Accounts payable$12M
Other current liabilities$35M

Current ratio4.89×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio4.84×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.03×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$183Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+77.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.0× → 4.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$195Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$157MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1M$1M of it operating leases

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$11M4% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity3%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$44Mover 8 years buying other businesses, against $1M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

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.

Insider ownership3.7%
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$13M
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Stock compensation 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
XNCRXencor Inc.	$126M	—	-69.2%	-12%	-30%
GYREGyre Therapeutics Inc.	$117M	96%	-276.4%	-9%	-1120%
URGNUroGen Pharma Ltd.	$110M	—	-157.5%	-58%	-142%
TBPHTheravance Biopharma Inc.	$107M	94%	-357.1%	-73%	-268%
ZVRAZevra Therapeutics Inc.	$106M	—	-158.4%	-127%	-123%
ZYMEZymeworks Inc.	$106M	—	-180.7%	-38%	-153%
GRCEGrace Therapeutics Inc.	$100M	100%	-11.1%	-19%	-9%
SPRYARS Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$84M	—	-353.3%	-39%	-320%
Group median	—	—	-169.5%	-38%	-148%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Zevra Therapeutics Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Base Normalize · through-cycle (($35M)) Net of stock comp (−$13M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $12M on 59M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net cash $36M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh ZVRA against another business →

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

Manual order: ← ZUMZ its page in the Manual ZWS →

Industry order: ← ZTS the Pharmaceuticals chapter ZYBT →