One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$0.25 our estimate vs market $1.47
Wall Street consensus: $6.33 (2,392.1% higher than our fair-value estimate)
476% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Codexis, Inc.
CDXS · NMS · Healthcare · Biotechnology
Current price
$1.47
52-week range
$0.96 - $2.98
Market cap
$160.43M
Balance sheet
Distressed
-7.96x Concerning
Net debt $17.67M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
2 Rewards
2 Risks
2 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 10.4% last year.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 1/10 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -69.4% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from -22.9% to -75.3% over 3 years.
What this company does
Codexis, Inc.
Codexis develops special proteins called enzymes that act like tiny helpers in a factory, making it easier for pharmaceutical companies to produce new medicines. The company earns most of its money through licensing agreements (deals where other companies like Pfizer pay to use Codexis's unique technology) for creating these drugs. This matters because Codexis's technology can be a key part of the supply chain (the entire process of making and delivering a product) for developing next-generation treatments.
How the company got here
Codexis was founded in 2002 with a focus on using enzymes (proteins that speed up chemical reactions) for various industrial purposes. Around 2006, the company shifted its strategy to concentrate on the pharmaceutical industry, where its technology could make drug manufacturing more efficient and environmentally friendly. [4, 11] After becoming a public company in 2010, it built a reputation for creating custom enzymes for major drug makers. [4, 11] More recently, in 2022, Codexis launched a major initiative to apply its enzyme expertise to the manufacturing of a new class of medicines called RNA therapeutics, marking its next key turning point. [11]
What it actually does
Think of Codexis as a design firm for microscopic biological machines called enzymes. Using its special technology platform, CodeEvolver®, the company rapidly designs and develops unique enzymes that are tailor-made for a specific job. [5, 20] Pharmaceutical and biotech companies buy these custom enzymes to improve their manufacturing processes, much like a chef would buy a specialized tool to make a difficult recipe easier and faster. [11] This can help make medicines more efficiently, with less waste, and at a larger scale than traditional chemical methods. [6]
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
This is the company's established business, where it creates and sells custom enzymes, often called biocatalysts, to drug manufacturers. [11, 25] Pharmaceutical companies use these enzymes as highly specific tools to simplify the complex steps involved in making traditional medicines (often called small molecule drugs). By using a Codexis enzyme, a drug maker can often reduce the number of steps in their production process, lower costs, and use fewer harsh chemicals. [11] This part of the business involves partnerships with some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. [5]
ECO Synthesis™ Platform
This is the company's newer and fast-growing business line, focused on a modern type of medicine known as RNAi therapeutics. [1, 2] Manufacturing these complex drugs at a very large scale is a major challenge for the industry. [9] Codexis's ECO Synthesis™ platform offers a solution by using a series of specially designed enzymes to build these RNA medicines in a way that is more scalable and sustainable than older chemical methods. [7, 14] Biotech and pharmaceutical companies pay Codexis for access to this platform and its enzymes to help produce these next-generation drugs for clinical trials and eventually for sale to patients. [6, 15]
What management is betting on now
Management is heavily focused on making the ECO Synthesis™ platform the new standard for manufacturing RNA-based medicines. [9] They believe the demand for these therapies is set to grow dramatically, and that traditional manufacturing methods won't be able to keep up. [22] By providing a unique, enzyme-based solution, Codexis aims to become an essential partner for companies developing these new drugs. [13] To support this bet, the company is investing in building its own manufacturing facilities and is streamlining other parts of its business to dedicate resources to this high-growth opportunity. [9, 21]
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
$-13.99M
FY2024 Q4
$-18.24M
FY2025 Q1
$-15.05M
FY2025 Q2
$-20.48M
FY2025 Q3
$-7.88M
FY2025 Q4
$19.57M
FY2026 Q1
$-13.33M
FY2026 Q2
$-10.54M
Revenue
$14.91M
Net income
$-12.01M
Diluted EPS
-0.13
Operating cash flow
$-9.64M
Free cash flow
$-10.54M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$15.25M
Net income
$-8.70M
Diluted EPS
-0.10
Operating cash flow
$-13.15M
Free cash flow
$-13.33M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$38.91M
Net income
$9.60M
Diluted EPS
0.13
Operating cash flow
$20.09M
Free cash flow
$19.57M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$8.60M
Net income
$-19.61M
Diluted EPS
-0.22
Operating cash flow
$-7.70M
Free cash flow
$-7.88M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$15.33M
Net income
$-13.27M
Diluted EPS
-0.16
Operating cash flow
$-17.97M
Free cash flow
$-20.48M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$7.54M
Net income
$-20.69M
Diluted EPS
-0.25
Operating cash flow
$-13.80M
Free cash flow
$-15.05M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$21.46M
Net income
$-10.38M
Diluted EPS
-0.12
Operating cash flow
$-16.47M
Free cash flow
$-18.24M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$12.83M
Net income
$-20.64M
Diluted EPS
-0.29
Operating cash flow
$-12.98M
Free cash flow
$-13.99M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $0.25 vs current price $1.47
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $6.33 (2,392.1% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $0.25 a share — about 82.7% below today's price of $1.47, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $17.7M. Interest coverage -8.0x.
Net debt
$17.67M
Interest coverage
-7.96x
Codexis, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here and 4 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
CDXS
BASELINE
Codexis, Inc.
Total debt $72.59M Interest coverage -7.96x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $170.70M Interest coverage -1.07x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $108.59M Interest coverage -4,698.59x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $3.83M Interest coverage -600.09x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $108.00M Interest coverage -157.90x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
What you should know
The case for and against CDXS
2 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 10.4% last year.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 1/10 years.
Risks
-
Return on equity was -69.4% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Operating margin compressed from -22.9% to -75.3% over 3 years.
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)
—
Forward P/E
-4.58x
P/B
4.06x
P/S
2.07x
EV/EBITDA
-9.35x
PEG ratio
13.53x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
24.3%
Operating margin
-75.3%
Net margin
-39.6%
ROE
-69.4%
ROA
-11.7%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
2.20x
Current ratio
3.06x
Quick ratio
2.83x
Total debt
$72.59M
Total cash
$54.92M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$77.68M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-9.5%
EPS TTM
-0.33
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-10.40M
Free CF TTM
$-23.85M
FCF margin
-30.7%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
—