Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (CADL) Stock Analysis

Price updated today · SEC data refreshed 2 months ago ⓘ · Not investment advice

Candel Therapeutics, Inc.

CADL Healthcare Biotechnology📄 SEC filings ↗
Speculative
Long-term trend (200d) 106% above 200-day Risk 26/100 Moderate
▾ What's in the 26/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Fundamental health (43%) 20/100 → +8.6
leverage 20/100 · Altman Z not scored — input unavailable (see Financial Health)
Smart money (short interest + insider buying) (31%) 31/100 → +9.7
Macro backdrop (VIX, curve, credit, fear/greed + week-over-week momentum) (26%) 28/100 → +7.2
Total26/100

Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately, which relies on a proxied (estimated) input. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.

💵 Price $11.72 · today 📄 Financials SEC EDGAR · refreshed 2 months ago
📍 START HERE

How to read CADL (speculative micro-cap)

No model can pin a precise fair value on a company this small — but that does not mean there is nothing to learn. The useful questions are what the price is betting on, and whether the company can survive long enough to deliver it.

Where to start — the sections that matter most for this stock
  1. 1 Reverse-DCF — what growth the price assumes ↓
    The single most useful number here: it backs out the growth the market is paying for. If that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals.
  2. 2 Cash runway ↓
    A pre-profit micro-cap lives or dies on whether it can fund itself to profitability before running out of money and diluting you.
  3. 3 The raw financial statements + the 10-K ↓
    At this scale, the actual numbers, insider ownership, and share-count trend tell you more than any ratio.
Or — what are you trying to decide?
One rule first: never trade out of fear — and that includes the fear of missing out. A stock up 10% a day for three days is excitement, not data. If you can't point to the evidence behind a trade, you're more likely to lose. So whichever of these you are, check the data below before you act.
🚀
"It's surging — should I chase it?"
The momentum / FOMO trade. Before you chase, see whether the people who know it best are quietly selling into the rally.
🏷️
"Is it a cheap bargain?"
The deep-value trade. How far below assets and our value it trades — and whether it's cheap for a reason.
ⓘ Using the right valuation lens for this business type

Standard DCF doesn't fit CADL well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Rule of 40 (Pre-Profit Growth) Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value biotechnology. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.

ⓘ Why does CADL trade at $11.72?

Candel Therapeutics, Inc. has 73.3 million shares outstanding. At $11.72 per share, the market values all outstanding CADL equity at $859 million. That's market capitalization, not enterprise value — enterprise value also accounts for debt and cash. The share price by itself tells you almost nothing — a company can pick any share price by splitting or issuing more shares. What matters is the total value (Market Cap?Market Cap — The total dollar value the market is assigning to the entire company.
Why it matters: This is the number that actually matters when comparing companies. Two companies with the same business but different share counts have the same market cap.
Reference: Mega cap >$200B · Large $10–200B · Mid $2–10B · Small $300M–2B · Micro <$300M
Full explanation →) compared to what the business actually produces. This page values CADL in Per Share?Per Share — A company-level figure divided by total shares — what one share represents.
Why it matters: Per-share metrics are the only way to fairly compare two companies with different share counts.
Full explanation → economics — what each share represents of the underlying business. Play with the share-price calculator on the homepage →

Loading insider & short-seller data…
🧬 BUSINESS-MODEL ADVISORY — CLINICAL-STAGE BIOTECH

How to read a company this small

This is a clinical-stage biotech with little or no revenue. Standard DCF requires future cash flows to discount — there's nothing to discount yet. The value is entirely in the drug pipeline and the probability that it works.

✅ What actually drives value for this kind of company
  • Drug pipeline — phase of each candidate (Phase I → II → III → FDA approval); each phase has historical success probabilities
  • Total Addressable Market (TAM) of the lead indication — bigger market = bigger payoff if approved
  • Cash runway — months of cash left at current burn rate before they need to raise more (and dilute shareholders)
  • Strategic partnerships — Big Pharma collaborations validate the science and bring milestone payments
  • Patent / exclusivity timeline — how long until generics if approved
  • Insider holdings + management track record — biotech execs with prior wins are a real signal
❌ Metrics that DON'T apply (ignore these even if you see them below)

P/E, P/B, EV/Sales, ROE — meaningless when there's no revenue or earnings. DCF outputs are nonsense.

📚 Where to actually look

ClinicalTrials.gov for trial status. The 10-K's "Pipeline" section. Recent press releases on Phase II/III readouts. Conferences like JPM Healthcare or ASCO.

Classified as Clinical-Stage Biotech (confidence 85%). Disagree? An admin can override via the post edit screen.

PEER BASKET — TIGHT COMPARABLES

⚠ Genuine comparables are scarce at this size, so peer multiples are unreliable here. Treat as rough context only — see 📍 What to focus on above.

How does CADL stack up against its closest peers?

We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to CADL (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CADL is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.

▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?

EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.

EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).

p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.

What peers trade at (p25 / median / p75)

Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.

What CADL would be worth at the median peer's multiple
Not enough clean peer EV/Sales multiples to derive a reliable median (some were dropped as implausible/outliers). The EV/EBIT and FCF-yield rows above are the better read here; also lean on the DCF.

⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.

▾ View peer list (8)
Ticker Company Industry Mcap EV/Sales EV/GP EV/EBIT FCF Yield
VALN Valneva SE Biotechnology $892M — — — —
SANA Sana Biotechnology, Inc. Biotechnology $918M — — — —
MGTX MeiraGTx Holdings plc Biotechnology $986M 12.1x — — 1.0%
SLDB Solid Biosciences Inc. Biotechnology $723M — — — —
REPL Replimune Group, Inc. Biotechnology $718M — — — —
PRME Prime Medicine, Inc. Biotechnology $641M 138.4x — — 0.1%
VOR Vor Biopharma Inc. Biotechnology $1.2B — — — —
TECX Tectonic Therapeutic, Inc. Biotechnology $588M — — — —
FINANCIAL HEALTH SCREENS

Quality & solvency checks

Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.

Altman Z-Score?Altman Z-Score — A bankruptcy-risk score combining 5 financial ratios into one number. Predictive of bankruptcy within 2 years.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
n/a
Not reliably computable

We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.

Piotroski checks
4 passed · 4 failed · 1 n/a
Partial result, not a standard F-score: 4 of 8 measurable checks passed. 1 of the 9 standard checks couldn't be measured, so this is scored out of 8, not 9 — it isn't comparable to a published F-score.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
  • ✗ Positive net income
    Net income -$36.1M in the latest year.
    Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
  • ✗ Positive operating cash flow
    Operating cash flow -$27.0M (was -$34.2M the prior year).
    Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
  • ✓ Cash flow backs up reported profit
    Operating cash flow -$27.0M vs net income -$36.1M.
  • ✗ Return on assets improving
    Return on assets -87.7% vs -22.8% a year ago.
    Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
  • ✓ Debt load (vs assets)
    Long-term debt is 4.2% of assets vs 15.0% a year ago ($1.7M now).
  • ✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)
    Current ratio 2.59x vs 12.81x a year ago.
    Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
  • ✓ Share count (dilution)
    Share count held roughly flat (73.3M → 73.3M year-over-year).
  • · Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
  • ✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)
    Asset turnover 0.00x vs 0.00x a year ago.

Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.

INTERACTIVE — TWEAK YOUR ASSUMPTIONS

What if you assume different inputs?

Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount Rate?Discount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for CADL. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.

Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.

4.5% (risk-free)9-10% normal18% (deep-risk)
0%2-3% (GDP)5% (rarely sustainable)

A full intrinsic value isn't shown for CADL because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.

For comparison — the revenue growth today's price already assumes
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—

—

⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
Where the discount rate comes from — discount rate = risk-free + beta × equity-risk-premium
What you'd earn risk-free from government bonds — the floor under every other rate. Slide it down to model the market expecting rate cuts (value rises); up for higher-for-longer.
The extra yearly return investors demand for owning stocks instead of safe bonds — the price of risk. History runs ~4.5–6.5%; we default to 5.5% (slightly conservative). It's an estimate, not a law — lower it if you think equities are less risky than that.
Inflation quietly eats returns: a 9% gain at 3% inflation is only ~6% in real purchasing power. The intrinsic value above is already in today's dollars (a nominal DCF cancels inflation out of both growth and the discount rate), so this doesn't change the value — it shows what's left of your return after the tax.
Higher beta → higher discount rate (sets the rate above). 1.0 = moves with the market.
What you think CADL can grow revenue for ~5 years, then fades to terminal.
For a pre-profit company: the % of revenue that eventually becomes free cash flow once mature. (Our published value uses the sector norm.)
All inputs start at the values our model used.

    Copy shareable link to this scenario →

    Price$11.72
    Model IVNot applicable — DCF couldn't price this stock. See Reverse DCF and Football Field below.

    Analysis narrative not yet available for this stock.

    ⚠️ FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.

    As of 2 months ago

    ANATOMY

    Anatomy of a share

    What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.

    CADL Candel Therapeutics, Inc. stock anatomy showing per-share revenue, operating expenses, free cash flow, and debt
    −28,899.2%
    loss
    Where each $1 of revenue goes
    For every $1 of revenue, CADL currently loses 28,899.2¢ — costs exceed sales. A money-losing business can still be a good investment if losses are shrinking toward profitability; check the trend, not just the snapshot.
    Net margin = net income ÷ revenue (most recent fiscal year).
    Plain English: $12/share buys $0.00 of revenue per share per year, generates $0.49 lost per share per year, and $0.38 of cash burned per share (negative free cash flow). Each share carries $0.02 of debt.
    What's free cash flow / what do these mean?

    Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.

    Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.

    Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.

    Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.

    MOMENTUM — WHAT'S GETTING BETTER & WORSE

    The trend, in plain numbers (2021 → 2022)

    Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.

    ✅ Improving
    • Free cash flow is negative at -$27.5M — the cash burn narrowed vs last year.
    ⚠ Worsening
    • Still unprofitable at -$36.1M — loss widening.

    Roughly flat: Revenue was flat +0% to $125K.

    WHO

    Management & Leadership

    Information not yet available. Executive data not available from current data sources.
    WHAT

    What They Make

    Company description not yet available.

    Segment revenue breakdown not available from current data sources.
    Market Cap: 858.7MBeta: 1.00
    WHY

    Why Is It Priced Like This?

    No discounted-cash-flow value for this filer This company's reported free cash flow is negative, so a discounted-cash-flow valuation has no positive cash stream to discount. That is a fact about the business, not missing data — the reported figures below are complete.

    What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
    Pricing analysis not yet available for this stock.
    HOW

    Business Model & Valuation

    Business model analysis not yet available for this stock.

    Growth / Revenue DCF

    Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.

    Show advanced inputs
    RevenueGrowth2.0%

    What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project product, services and recurring/cloud lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.

    WHEN

    Maturity & Competitive Position

    Competitive analysis not yet available for this stock.
    WHERE

    Geography & Markets

    Geographic revenue mix not available from current data sources.
    SIGNALS

    Market Signals

    These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.

    Model neutral, tape bullish
    RSI?RSI — Relative Strength Index — a 0-100 momentum gauge. Above 70 = overbought; below 30 = oversold.
    Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
    Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
    Full explanation →     (14)    59.5NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
    MACD?MACD — Moving Average Convergence Divergence — compares a fast and a slow price trend to gauge momentum direction.
    Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
    Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
    Full explanation →    BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
    50-Day Average$6.40Price above (+83.1%)Price above its 50-day average = near-term uptrend.
    200-Day Average$5.69Price aboveThe 200-day line is the long-term trend divider — above it is generally considered a bull market for the stock.
    50 vs 200 CrossGolden50-day above 200-dayA "golden cross" — the medium trend has overtaken the long trend (often read as bullish).

    Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.

    QUALITY

    Data Quality & Risk Flags (4 notes — click to expand/collapse)
    Guardrail Notes (4)
    • FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
    • Terminal growth (3%) capped to 1.6% (80% of near-term growth 2%).
    • INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
    • Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
    FINANCIALS

    Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)

    From Candel Therapeutics, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).

    Income (5yr)

    YearRevenueNet IncomeEPS
    2022125,000-36.1M$-1.91
    2021125,000-17.7M$-0.24
    2020125,000—$0.00

    Cash Flow (5yr)

    YearOperating CFCapEx− SBC & adj.Free Cash Flow
    2024 -27.0M 457,000 — -27.5M
    2023 -34.2M 1.3M — -35.5M
    2022 -31.4M 1.8M — -33.3M
    2021 -22.2M 1.5M — -23.7M
    2020 -9.1M — — -9.1M

    How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.

    Balance Sheet

    Total Assets41.2M
    Total Liabilities28.5M
    Equity47.7M
    Total Debt1.7M
    PG
    Methodology by Pouyan Golshani, MD — founder of Gighz. Savng was built by a physician for busy professionals: every number on this page comes from SEC filings (EDGAR) and FINRA data through transparent, rules-based models — no analyst opinions, no hidden inputs. How we calculate every number →
    ⚠️ Not investment advice. Automated model outputs, last refreshed May 28, 2026 (the analysis-refresh date, not the latest filing period). All models have blind spots. Full disclaimer →
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