One-glance verdict
Not enough data
Fair value unavailable
Not enough cash-flow history to value this one with our method.
Fundamentals snapshot
Beam Therapeutics Inc.
BEAM · NMS · Healthcare · Biotechnology
Current price
$24.27
52-week range
$20.23 - $38.26
Market cap
$2.51B
Balance sheet
Healthy
-8.77x Concerning
Net cash $905.57M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
1 Reward
3 Risks
1 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 11.7% last year.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from -555.6% to -25827.1% over 3 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -8.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 1.4% (peer median: 4.9%).
What this company does
Beam Therapeutics Inc.
Beam Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that is developing a new type of medicine designed to precisely edit a person's genes, aiming to cure serious inherited diseases like sickle cell anemia. Since its treatments are still being tested and are not yet for sale, the company's money comes from research partnerships with larger drug companies who pay Beam for its technology. The company's future success depends entirely on whether these new gene-editing therapies are proven safe and effective in human trials and eventually approved for sale.
How the company got here
Beam Therapeutics was founded in 2017 by leading scientists in the field of gene editing from Harvard University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The company was built around a groundbreaking technology called base editing, which allows for very precise changes to DNA. After raising significant funds from investors, Beam had its initial public offering (IPO), where a company first sells shares of stock to the public, in 2020. A key event was a collaboration with Pfizer in 2022 to develop treatments for rare genetic diseases. The company has since moved from the research phase to testing its potential medicines in human clinical trials.
What it actually does
Imagine your body's instruction manual (your DNA) has a single spelling mistake that causes a serious disease. Beam Therapeutics is working on a way to act like a tiny pencil and eraser to correct that specific spelling mistake without rewriting the whole page. This technology, called base editing, aims to fix the root cause of genetic diseases by precisely changing a single letter in the DNA code. Their goal is to develop one-time, lifelong cures for patients with serious conditions. The company is still in the development stage, meaning none of its therapies are for sale yet, and it currently makes money from collaborations with other companies rather than product sales.
Hematology Franchise
This part of the company focuses on developing treatments for serious blood disorders. Their main project, called risto-cel (formerly BEAM-101), is for sickle cell disease, a painful and life-threatening inherited condition. The treatment involves taking a patient's own blood stem cells, editing them in a lab to correct the genetic error, and then returning them to the patient. This is a major focus for the company and represents one of its most advanced potential therapies.
Genetic Disease Franchise (Liver-focused)
This division concentrates on using its technology to treat genetic diseases that primarily affect the liver. A key program is BEAM-302, a potential treatment for a condition called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), which can damage both the liver and lungs. Unlike the hematology treatments, these therapies are designed to be delivered directly into the body (in vivo) using tiny fat bubbles called lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that carry the gene-editing tool to the liver. The company is also developing similar treatments for other inherited liver diseases.
Collaborations and Platform Licensing
Beam Therapeutics doesn't just work on its own medicines; it also partners with other large pharmaceutical companies. For example, it has a major collaboration with Pfizer to develop therapies for rare genetic diseases of the liver, muscle, and central nervous system. In these arrangements, the partner company often pays Beam upfront fees and makes additional payments as the research progresses, known as milestone payments. This provides Beam with important funding to support its own research and development (the process of creating and testing new products) while it is still in the pre-commercial stage (before it has products to sell).
What management is betting on now
Management is currently focused on proving that its base editing technology works safely and effectively in people through late-stage clinical trials. Their immediate priorities are advancing their main potential treatments for sickle cell disease (risto-cel) and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (BEAM-302) toward approval from regulators like the FDA. The company is also investing in next-generation delivery methods, aiming to eventually deliver their gene-editing tools directly to blood stem cells inside the body, which could be a simpler and safer approach for patients. By concentrating their spending on these key programs, they aim to extend their cash runway (the amount of time they can operate before needing more funding) into 2029.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$-89.70M
FY2024 Q4
$-79.33M
FY2025 Q1
$-106.95M
FY2025 Q2
$-79.59M
FY2025 Q3
$-86.49M
FY2025 Q4
$-87.02M
FY2026 Q1
$-130.75M
FY2026 Q2
$-68.51M
Revenue
$490.00K
Net income
$-122.68M
Diluted EPS
-1.18
Operating cash flow
$-66.10M
Free cash flow
$-68.51M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$31.74M
Net income
$-94.32M
Diluted EPS
-0.91
Operating cash flow
$-128.51M
Free cash flow
$-130.75M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$114.11M
Net income
$244.30M
Diluted EPS
2.53
Operating cash flow
$-83.29M
Free cash flow
$-87.02M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$9.70M
Net income
$-112.73M
Diluted EPS
-1.10
Operating cash flow
$-81.48M
Free cash flow
$-86.49M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$8.47M
Net income
$-102.29M
Diluted EPS
-1.00
Operating cash flow
$-76.45M
Free cash flow
$-79.59M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$7.47M
Net income
$-109.27M
Diluted EPS
-1.24
Operating cash flow
$-103.88M
Free cash flow
$-106.95M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$30.07M
Net income
$-90.35M
Diluted EPS
-1.09
Operating cash flow
$-76.36M
Free cash flow
$-79.33M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$14.27M
Net income
$-96.67M
Diluted EPS
-1.17
Operating cash flow
$-88.12M
Free cash flow
$-89.70M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value — vs current price $24.27
We couldn't calculate a fair value right now.
Is it drowning in debt?
Healthy
Net cash $905.6M - more cash than debt. Interest coverage -8.8x.
Net debt
$-905.57M
Interest coverage
-8.77x
Beam Therapeutics Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here and 3 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Healthy
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
BEAM
BASELINE
Beam Therapeutics Inc.
Total debt $247.36M Interest coverage -8.77x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $73.41M Interest coverage -15.10x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $15.51M Interest coverage -16.10x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $112.48M Interest coverage -50.22x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
What you should know
The case for and against BEAM
1 Reward
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 11.7% last year.
Risks
-
Operating margin compressed from -555.6% to -25827.1% over 3 years.
-
Return on equity was -8.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Insider ownership is only 1.4% (peer median: 4.9%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
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Forward P/E
-5.12x
P/B
2.27x
P/S
16.07x
EV/EBITDA
-4.27x
PEG ratio
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Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
-161.9%
Operating margin
-25,827.1%
Net margin
-55.4%
ROE
-8.2%
ROA
-17.0%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.23x
Current ratio
14.57x
Quick ratio
14.25x
Total debt
$247.36M
Total cash
$1.15B
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$156.03M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
28.1%
EPS TTM
-0.69
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-359.38M
Free CF TTM
$-360.05M
FCF margin
-230.7%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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