Design Therapeutics, Inc. (DSGN) Stock Analysis
Design Therapeutics, Inc.
▾ What's in the 41/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read DSGN (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
Standard DCF doesn't fit DSGN 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 pharmaceuticals. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
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.
- 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
P/E, P/B, EV/Sales, ROE — meaningless when there's no revenue or earnings. DCF outputs are nonsense.
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.
How does DSGN stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to DSGN (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If DSGN 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, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are 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.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
4.4x / 6.3x / 7.4x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XNCR | Xencor Inc | Pharmaceuticals | $881M | 7.4x | — | — | 0.4% |
| SPRY | ARS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | Pharmaceuticals | $901M | 11.8x | — | — | 4.1% |
| PHAT | Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | Pharmaceuticals | $765M | 5.6x | 6.4x | — | 2.4% |
| ZVRA | ZEVRA THERAPEUTICS, INC. | Pharmaceuticals | $685M | 7.0x | — | — | 11.1% |
| XERS | Xeris Biopharma Holdings, Inc. | Pharmaceuticals | $1.1B | 4.4x | — | 51.6x | 28.6% |
| TLRY | Tilray Brands, Inc. | Pharmaceuticals | $642M | 0.8x | 2.7x | — | 1.2% |
| WVE | Wave Life Sciences Ltd. | Pharmaceuticals | $1.3B | 29.6x | — | — | 0.0% |
| TRAX | First Tracks Biotherapeutics, Inc. | Pharmaceuticals | $557M | — | — | — | — |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
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 →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$69.8M 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.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$54.4M (was -$43.1M 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.
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$54.4M vs net income -$69.8M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -30.9% vs -19.7% 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.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 0.0% of assets vs 0.0% a year ago ($0.0M now).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 17.14x vs 29.31x 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.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 1.3% (56.6M → 57.3M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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· Sales per asset (asset turnover) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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.
Plain English: the company holds about $17M in cash and is burning roughly $54M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 4 mo before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.
Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Design Therapeutics, Inc. because the company has negative net income and operating cash flow, indicating it is not yet profitable and is burning cash. Valuing DSGN would require projecting the success and commercialization of its drug pipeline, which is highly speculative. Investors are likely betting on the potential of its therapeutic candidates to address unmet medical needs. The number one quantifiable risk is the continued negative operating cash flow, which implies ongoing cash burn.
As of 2 months ago
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.
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.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Results from ongoing clinical trials (e.g., Phase 1/2 data)
- Initiation of new clinical trials for pipeline candidates
- Announcements of strategic partnerships or collaborations
The trend, in plain numbers (2024 → 2025)
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.
Nothing clearly improving year-over-year.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$69.1M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$69.8M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
A standard DCFDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → valuation is not meaningful for Design Therapeutics, Inc. because the company has negative net income and operating cash flow, indicating it is not yet profitable and is burning cash. Valuing DSGN would require projecting the success and commercialization of its drug pipeline, which is highly speculative. Investors are likely betting on the potential of its therapeutic candidates to address unmet medical needs. The number one quantifiable risk is the continued negative operating cash flow, which implies ongoing cash burn.
What They Make
Design Therapeutics, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule therapeutics for serious degenerative diseases caused by nucleotide repeat expansions. Their products aim to treat genetic disorders by targeting the underlying cause of the disease.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
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.
The market is pricing DSGN based on the future potential of its drug pipeline, rather than current cash flows, as evidenced by its negative net income and operating cash flow. The market may be assigning value to the optionality of successful clinical trials and regulatory approvals for its lead drug candidates, which is not in the model. Investors are likely focused on the progress of its therapeutic programs and the cash runway to fund these developments.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself primarily through equity raises to support its research and development activities, as it has negative operating cash flow and does not pay dividends or engage in buybacks.
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| RevenueGrowth | 15.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments 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.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Net income and operating cash flow have been negative in the latest period and for 0/5 years, indicating a cash-burning growth stage.
Geography & Markets
Design Therapeutics, Inc. is headquartered in the United States. Specific geographic revenue mix is not available, but its focus on drug development implies a global market reach upon successful commercialization.
Geographic Risks
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.
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)37.3NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
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.
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.
- 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.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Design Therapeutics, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | -69.8M | $-1.22 |
| 2024 | — | -49.6M | $-0.88 |
| 2023 | — | -66.9M | $-1.19 |
| 2022 | — | -63.3M | $-1.14 |
| 2021 | — | -35.5M | $-0.77 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -54.4M | 193,000 | 14.5M | -69.1M |
| 2024 | -43.1M | 340,000 | 13.1M | -56.5M |
| 2023 | -58.6M | 256,000 | 13.1M | -71.9M |
| 2022 | -51.3M | 918,000 | 10.9M | -63.2M |
| 2021 | -29.4M | 1.5M | 4.7M | -35.6M |
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). Latest year: -54.4M − 193,000 − 14.5M (SBC & adj.) = -69.1M. 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 Assets | 226.2M |
| Total Liabilities | 13.7M |
| Equity | 212.5M |