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ABCL, AbCellera Biologics Inc.

Biotechnology consumer brand UnprofitableCapital build-out

AbCellera is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing first-in-class antibody medicines for indications with high unmet medical need.

While we historically used our platform for our partners' programs, we have evolved our strategy to build our own internal pipeline of AbCellera-owned drug assets.

Opened our clinical manufacturing facility , which completes a multi-year investment to build our integrated platform for creating antibody medicines.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

ABCL · AbCellera Biologics Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$75M

+160.6% YoY · −20% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM

Cash & investments $120M

Cash burn · annual $95M

Runway 1.3 yrs

Next report By 11/8 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~38 days after · the wire records it on arrival

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 (62%), Research fees (36%) and Milestone payments (1%).
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. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 57% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 4.6% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −624% to 67% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Capital spending runs about 34% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. 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 −18%, above 15% in 3 of 7 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 is 62% of revenue, with Research fees the other meaningful line at 36%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

License62%$47M
Research fees36%$27M
Milestone payments1%$1M

By geographyCanada85%United States15%

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, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMJun 2026
								Income statement
$12M	$233M	$375M	$485M	$38M	$29M	$75M	$66M	RevenueRevenue
35%	7%	13%	14%	235%	341%	111%	144%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
87%	13%	17%	22%	462%	580%	249%	299%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($4M)	$156M	$204M	$217M	($237M)	($315M)	($217M)	($225M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−35.5%	66.9%	54.5%	44.6%	−623.8%	n/m	−289.0%	−340.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($2M)	$158M	$219M	$239M	($174M)	($200M)	($178M)	—	Pretax incomePretax
($2M)	$119M	$153M	$159M	($146M)	($163M)	($146M)	($165M)	Net incomeNet inc.
—	25%	30%	34%	—	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
								Cash flow & returns
$3M	$23M	$245M	$277M	($44M)	($109M)	($131M)	($95M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$2M	$5M	$14M	$28M	$24M	—	—	—	Depreciation & amortizationD&A
$2M	($109M)	$46M	$42M	$14M	($13M)	($41M)	$19M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$4M	$10M	$58M	$71M	$77M	$78M	$43M	$25M	CapexCapex
34.4%	4.1%	15.6%	14.6%	202.4%	271.9%	56.9%	37.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($1M)	$13M	$186M	$207M	($121M)	($187M)	($174M)	($120M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−11.2%	5.6%	49.6%	42.6%	−317.7%	−648.4%	−231.7%	−180.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($1M)	$13M	$186M	$207M	($121M)	($187M)	($174M)	($120M)	Free cash flowFCF
−11.2%	5.6%	49.6%	42.6%	−317.7%	−648.4%	−231.7%	−180.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$88M	$11M	$0	$0	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
($6M)	($120M)	($332M)	($353M)	($221M)	$121M	$88M	—	Investing cash flowInv. cash
$195K	$684M	($4M)	($2M)	$10M	$13M	$14M	—	Financing cash flowFin. cash
—	—	($1M)	($10M)	$589K	($3M)	$1M	—	Exchange-rate effectFX
($3M)	$587M	($93M)	($86M)	($254M)	$23M	($28M)	—	Change in cashΔ cash
-32%	50%	26%	17%	-18%	-28%	-20%	-23%	ROICROIC
-22%	14%	15%	13%	-13%	-15%	-15%	-18%	Return on equityROE
−22%	14%	15%	13%	−13%	−15%	−15%	−18%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
—	$594M	$476M	$387M	$133M	$156M	$129M	$120M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	—	—	—	$0	$32M	$39M	$38M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	—	—	—	—	$0	$6M	$8M	InventoryInvent.
—	$7M	$15M	$15M	$29M	$34M	$25M	—	Accounts payablePayables
—	—	—	—	($29M)	($2M)	$21M	$46M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$813M	$930M	$1.0B	$872M	$751M	$728M	$679M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$103M	$121M	$118M	$119M	$77M	$64M	$53M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	7.9×	7.7×	8.7×	7.3×	9.8×	11.3×	12.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$18M	$112M	$217M	—	—	—	—	Net PP&ENet PP&E
—	$32M	$48M	$48M	$48M	$48M	$48M	$48M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$1.0B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.3B	Total assetsAssets
—	($594M)	($476M)	($387M)	($133M)	($156M)	($129M)	($120M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
—	$175M	$293M	$308M	$336M	$304M	$390M	—	Total liabilitiesTotal liab.
$10M	$831M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$967M	$896M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
7.7%	3.6%	8.2%	10.2%	168.8%	234.4%	74.3%	77.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
								Per share
151M	263M	318M	315M	289M	294M	299M	304M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.08	$0.89	$1.18	$1.54	$0.13	$0.10	$0.25	$0.22	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.01	$0.45	$0.48	$0.50	$-0.51	$-0.55	$-0.49	$-0.54	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.01	$0.05	$0.58	$0.66	$-0.42	$-0.64	$-0.58	$-0.39	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.01	$0.05	$0.58	$0.66	$-0.42	$-0.64	$-0.58	$-0.39	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.03	$0.04	$0.18	$0.22	$0.27	$0.27	$0.14	$0.08	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.07	$3.16	$3.22	$3.92	$3.98	$3.59	$3.24	$2.94	Book value / shareBVPS

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.

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

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+21.9%/yr	−22.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	+32.5%/yr	+31.3%/yr
Book value / share	+90.5%/yr	+0.5%/yr

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2019FY2022

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 $146M loss but ($174M) of owner earnings: $28M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($146M)	($163M)	($146M)	$159M	$153M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	—	—	+$24M	+$28M	+$14M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$56M	+$68M	+$64M	+$49M	+$31M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$41M	−$13M	+$14M	+$42M	+$46M
Cash from operations	($131M)	($109M)	($44M)	$277M	$245M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$43M	−$78M	−$77M	−$71M	−$58M
Owner earnings	($174M)	($187M)	($121M)	$207M	$186M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-232%	-648%	-318%	43%	50%

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 $56M), owner earnings is nearer ($230M).

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.

In dashed depreciation years the filer's own depreciation concepts changed scope and do not reconcile with the adjacent years; the add-back is withheld rather than guessed, and its amount remains inside "Working capital & other."

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? +$129M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $129M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $129M, 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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median -106%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin -3%

Consumes cash through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range -318%–50%; latest ($174M) = operating cash ($131M) − maintenance capex $43M

Industry peers: median -302%

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 -232% of revenue this year, a -3% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $56M of SBC) leaves ($230M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($131M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($146M) · cash from operations ($131M)

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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

The promise and the pay packet

Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 74.3%

The count is genuinely shrinking

Stock compensation $56M (fiscal 2025), 74.3% of revenue · no repurchases · diluted shares -5.1% since 2022

What this means
Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.

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 · $75M

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× · 11.32×

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 (7-yr record) · 4 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record —

Uninterrupted dividends · no dividend line tagged in the data

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. This record carries no dividends-paid line in any year — common for partnerships, whose distributions file under tags the chain doesn't read — so the criterion is withheld rather than judged on silence.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −269%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $-0.50/share (latest year $-0.48), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.15/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, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 3 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin 29% → −668% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 29% early to −668% lately, median −35% — competition or costs are biting in.
Worst year 2024 · −1091.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Jun 30, 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$679M

Cash & short-term investments$120M
Receivables$38M
Inventory$8M
Other current assets$513M

Current liabilities$53M

Accounts payable$12M
Other current liabilities$41M

Current ratio12.77×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio12.63×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.26×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$626Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Cash runway1.0 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−76.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters9.3× → 12.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$812Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$268MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$136M$136M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$61Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $264M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$341M · 129%

Source of funding−$77M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $77M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Net change in share count101.1%
The diluted count rose from 151M to 304M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

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	(1)	$9.1M	−$122.9M	$186M
2022	(1)	$8.8M	−$12.5M	$207M
2023	(1)	$715k	−$14.6M	($121M)
2024	(1)	$8.2M	−$347k	($187M)
2025	(1)	$6.3M	$7.3M	($174M)

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 ownership28.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio52:1
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$56M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 74.3% 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, Biotechnology

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

Company	Revenuelatest FY, USD	Gross marginmedian over the record	Op. marginmedian over the record	ROICmedian over the record	Owner earn. marginmedian over the record
STROSutro Biopharma Inc.	$102M	—	-142.2%	-49%	-29%3y
MGTXMeiraGTx Holdings plc	$81M	—	-420.2%	-134%	-195%
AUTLAutolus Therapeutics PLC	$75M	-20%2y	-358.9%1y	-192%2y	-387%1y
ABCLAbCellera Biologics Inc.	$75M	—	4.6%	-18%	-3%
RXRXRecursion Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$75M	5%	-799.7%	-106%	-570%
CLLSCellectis S.A.	$73M	25%3y	-341.0%	-206%	-217%
VIRVir Biotechnology Inc.	$69M	95%4y	-544.0%	-45%	-417%
FENCFennec Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$45M	94%2y	-14.1%3y	-167%1y	—
Group median	—	—	-349.9%	-120%	-217%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

AbCellera Biologics 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%

Revenue, delivered−37%/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−181%

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 ABCL against another business →

The owners of ABCL: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "AbCellera Biologics Inc. (ABCL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ABCL, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← ABCB its page in the Manual ABEO →

Industry order: the Biotechnology chapter ABEO →