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VSTM, Verastem Inc.
We market AVMAPKI FAKZYNJA CO-PACK in the United States, the first treatment specifically FDA-approved for adults with KRAS-mutated recurrent low-grade serous ovarian cancer who have received prior systemic therapy.
A summary of our commercial and pipeline products is shown below.
The product was commercially available within a week of approval and was subsequently listed as a Category 2A recommendation for KRAS-mutated recurrent LGSOC in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network ("NCCN ") Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology ("NCCN Guidelines ").
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report Est. 11/2–11/9 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 45 days of period end · has filed ~37 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.
- 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.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run around −453% 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 49% 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 −78%, 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.
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 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||
| $27M | $17M | $89M | $2M | $3M | $10M | $31M | $88M | RevenueRevenue |
| 289% | 580% | 71% | n/m | 962% | 436% | 262% | 109% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 163% | 262% | 47% | n/m | n/m | 813% | 371% | 160% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($95M) | ($132M) | ($49M) | ($61M) | ($73M) | ($115M) | ($170M) | ($160M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −354.8% | −758.1% | −55.8% | n/m | n/m | n/m | −550.3% | −182.6% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($72M) | ($149M) | ($68M) | ($71M) | ($74M) | ($130M) | ($209M) | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| ($72M) | ($149M) | ($68M) | ($71M) | ($74M) | ($131M) | ($209M) | ($203M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||
| ($75M) | ($139M) | ($34M) | ($54M) | ($64M) | ($105M) | ($138M) | ($162M) | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $996K | $429K | $531K | $206K | $118K | $26K | $30K | — | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($10M) | $2M | $26M | $10M | $4M | $18M | $63M | $31M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $2M | $7K | $33K | $196K | — | $28K | — | — | CapexCapex |
| 5.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.5% | — | 0.3% | — | — | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($76M) | ($139M) | ($34M) | ($54M) | — | ($105M) | — | — | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −282.6% | −793.6% | −37.9% | n/m | — | n/m | — | — | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($76M) | ($139M) | ($34M) | ($54M) | — | ($105M) | — | — | Free cash flowFCF |
| −284.5% | −793.6% | −37.9% | n/m | — | n/m | — | — | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| ($138M) | $90M | ($47M) | $87K | $66M | $60M | ($10M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| $261M | ($2M) | $70M | $7M | $52M | $55M | $263M | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| $48M | ($51M) | ($11M) | ($47M) | $54M | $10M | $116M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| -84% | -325% | -59% | -73% | — | — | — | — | ROICROIC |
| -58% | -2080% | -59% | -81% | -156% | — | -366% | -406% | Return on equityROE |
| −58% | n/m | −59% | −81% | −156% | — | −366% | −406% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||
| $130M | $44M | $68M | $21M | $75M | $89M | $205M | $136M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $306K | $3M | $239K | $516K | $31K | — | $9M | $29M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $327K | $3M | — | — | — | — | $2M | $2M | InventoryInvent. |
| $10M | $10M | $2M | $2M | $5M | $4M | $12M | $18M | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($10M) | ($4M) | ($2M) | ($2M) | ($5M) | — | ($2M) | $13M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $253M | $85M | $145M | $106M | $93M | $95M | $223M | $176M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $37M | $30M | $17M | $19M | $22M | $31M | $72M | $78M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 6.8× | 2.8× | 8.5× | 5.7× | 4.3× | 3.1× | 3.1× | 2.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $1M | $947K | $416K | $210K | $92K | $32K | — | — | Net PP&ENet PP&E |
| $277M | $145M | $154M | $109M | $95M | $102M | $246M | $207M | Total assetsAssets |
| $95M | $69M | $19M | $249K | $25M | $41M | $76M | $74M | Total debtDebt |
| ($35M) | $25M | ($49M) | ($21M) | ($50M) | ($48M) | ($129M) | ($63M) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -16.3× | -6.4× | -3.1× | -6.2× | -34.1× | -25.2× | -149.5× | -108.2× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $153M | $138M | $39M | $21M | $48M | $130M | $189M | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| $124M | $7M | $115M | $88M | $47M | ($29M) | $57M | $50M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 25.0% | 48.9% | 9.2% | 375.6% | 232.9% | 73.4% | 30.4% | 11.1% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | ||||||||
| 69.3M | 74.6M | 153M | 14.5M | 16.1M | 35.7M | 69.3M | 99.6M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $0.39 | $0.23 | $0.58 | $0.14 | $0.16 | $0.28 | $0.45 | $0.88 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-1.04 | $-2.00 | $-0.44 | $-4.90 | $-4.57 | $-3.66 | $-3.02 | $-2.03 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-1.09 | $-1.86 | $-0.22 | $-3.69 | — | $-2.93 | — | — | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-1.10 | $-1.86 | $-0.22 | $-3.69 | — | $-2.93 | — | — | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.02 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.01 | — | $0.00 | — | — | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $1.79 | $0.10 | $0.75 | $6.02 | $2.94 | $-0.81 | $0.83 | $0.50 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×2.06 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 ×1/10.55 into 2021 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
The diluted share count moved ×2.21 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
The diluted share count moved ×1.94 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 ×1.44 into TTM — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
| 7-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +2.1%/yr | −5.0%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −42.5%/yr (6-yr) | +52.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | −10.5%/yr | +1.9%/yr |
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 2024 the business turned a $131M loss into ($105M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2024 | FY2021 | FY2020 | FY2019 | FY2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($131M) | ($71M) | ($68M) | ($149M) | ($72M) |
| Depreciationnon-cash charge added back | +$26K | +$206K | +$531K | +$429K | +$996K |
| Amortization of intangible assetsnon-cash charge added back; the purchase price of past acquisitions, expensed over time | — | — | +$793K | +$2M | +$423K |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$7M | +$8M | +$8M | +$9M | +$7M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$18M | +$10M | +$25M | +$154K | −$10M |
| Cash from operations | ($105M) | ($54M) | ($34M) | ($139M) | ($75M) |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$28K | −$196K | −$33K | −$7K | −$996K |
| Owner earnings | ($105M) | ($54M) | ($34M) | ($139M) | ($76M) |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | — | — | — | −$511K |
| Free cash flow | ($105M) | ($54M) | ($34M) | ($139M) | ($76M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -1048% | -2616% | -38% | -794% | -283% |
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 $7M), owner earnings is nearer ($112M).
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.
Dashed amortization years: the filer did not tag the intangible-amortization line that year, so that year's charge remains inside "Working capital & other."
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
“The Company has retroactively restated the share and per share amounts in the consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023, to give retroactive effect to the Reverse Stock Split.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? -149.5×Does not cover its interestOperating income ($170M) ÷ interest expense $1M
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.
- Net cashCash $205M − debt $76M
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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Not meaningful hereInvested capital ($71M) = debt $76M + equity $57M − cashIndustry peers: median -92%
What this means
Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median -32%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Are earnings backed by cash? ($138M)Loss, and burning cashNet income ($209M) · cash from operations ($138M)
In the filing’s words The filing discloses a restatement of previously reported figures — some numbers in the record have moved since they were first filed; read what changed, and why, before trusting the trend.
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?
- 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? 30.4%Stock pay, share count unreadStock compensation $9M (fiscal 2025), 30.4% of revenue · no repurchases · the share count is not comparable across these years (a split or a first listing sits in the record), so the drift is withheld
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 · 2 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 MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $31M
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 3.09×
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 PassDebt ≤ working capital · $76M vs $151M 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 MissA profit every year (7-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 —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 —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 $-1.52/share (latest year $-2.31), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.63/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 7
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 −390% → −1503% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −390% early to −1503% lately, median −758% — competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Worst year 2021 · −2991.2% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −0.0%/yr
What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Jun 30, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$136M
- Receivables$29M
- Inventory$2M
- Other current assets$9M
- Accounts payable$18M
- Other current liabilities$60M
From the company's latest filing.
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” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Mr. Paterson | $3.6M | $3.2M | — |
| 2023 | Mr. Paterson | $2.0M | $2.2M | — |
| 2024 | Mr. Paterson | $2.5M | $2.4M | ($131M) |
| 2025 | Mr. Paterson | $2.3M | $3.8M | ($209M) |
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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership1.9%
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$9M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 30.4% 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, Pharmaceuticals
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WVEWave Life Sciences Ltd. | $43M | — | -310.1% | — | -219% |
| NBTXNanobiotix S.A. | $38M | — | -53.6% | — | -70% |
| BGMBGM Group Ltd. | $38M | 16% | 3.7% | 5% | 1% |
| BHSTBioHarvest Sciences Inc. | $35M | 55% | -27.7% | -182%1y | -32% |
| VSTMVerastem Inc. | $31M | — | -452.5% | -78% | -283%3y |
| PREPrenetics Global Limited | $31M | 40% | -238.7% | -29% | -6% |
| ALMSAlumis Inc. | $24M | — | — | -169%1y | — |
| NAMSNewAmsterdam Pharma Company N.V. | $23M | — | -195.2%2y | -46%2y | -170%2y |
| Group median | — | — | -195.2% | -62% | -70% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFThe owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the 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.
Revenue, delivered−9%/yr’19→’25
Enter a price to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
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.
Manual order: ← VST its page in the Manual VSTS →
Industry order: ← VRTX the Pharmaceuticals chapter VTRS →