Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (XENE) Stock Analysis

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

Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc.

XENE Healthcare Pharmaceuticals📄 SEC filings ↗
Valuation N/A
Long-term trend (200d) 37% above 200-day Risk 41/100 Elevated
▾ What's in the 41/100 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%) 79/100 → +24.8
Macro backdrop (VIX, curve, credit, fear/greed + week-over-week momentum) (26%) 28/100 → +7.2
Total41/100

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 $62.35 · today 📄 Financials SEC EDGAR · refreshed 2 months ago
📍 START HERE

How to read XENE (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.

Where to start — the sections that matter most for this stock
  1. 1 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.
  2. 2 Cash runway ↓
    Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
  3. 3 Interactive calculator ↓
    Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
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 XENE 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.

ⓘ Why does XENE trade at $62.35?

Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. has 79.3 million shares outstanding. At $62.35 per share, the market values all outstanding XENE equity at $4.9 billion. That's market capitalization, not enterprise value — enterprise value also accounts for debt and cash (XENE carries little or no debt, so the two are close here). 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 XENE 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…
VALUATION RANGE — CROSS-METHOD CHECK

Football field: where does the price sit?

Different valuation methods produce different fair-value ranges depending on assumptions. Plotting them together lets you see at a glance whether the current price is reasonable across approaches, or only one specific lens.

EV / Sales (p25→p75)$3$3Current: $62.35$2$18$34$50$65
The current price sits ABOVE the high end of every method. The market is paying a premium to all of these lenses — it expects materially better growth or margins than the models assume.

Industry multiples sourced from: industry: Pharmaceuticals. See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.

PEER BASKET — TIGHT COMPARABLES

How does XENE stack up against its closest peers?

We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to XENE (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If XENE 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.

What peers trade at (p25 / median / p75)
EV / Sales?EV / 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 →		 6.5x / 8.9x / 9.8x

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

What XENE would be worth at the median peer's multiple
$3.36
If XENE traded at the typical (median) peer's EV/Sales multiple, the share price would be about $3.36.
Plain English: the stock currently trades at $62.35. That's 1,756.2% MORE than the peer multiple suggests. The market is paying a big premium — XENE looks expensive vs peers. Either the market thinks this stock deserves a premium (faster growth, better margins, brand moat), or it's overpriced.

⚠️ 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
TVTX Travere Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $4.4B 8.9x — — 4.6%
TGTX TG THERAPEUTICS, INC. Pharmaceuticals $5.8B 9.8x — 49.1x 10.6%
ERAS Erasca, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $4.0B — — — —
VKTX Viking Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $3.8B — — — —
CPRX CATALYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. Pharmaceuticals $3.8B 6.5x — 14.8x 4.6%
TLX Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd Pharmaceuticals $3.2B — 7.5x — —
TNGX Tango Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $3.2B 51.0x — — 0.4%
XTLB XTL BIOPHARMACEUTICALS LTD Pharmaceuticals $2.7B 6,042.3x 908,362.1x — —
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
2 passed · 5 failed · 2 n/a
Partial result, not a standard F-score: 2 of 7 measurable checks passed. 2 of the 9 standard checks couldn't be measured, so this is scored out of 7, 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 -$345.9M 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 -$279.1M (was -$181.4M 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 -$279.1M vs net income -$345.9M.
  • ✗ Return on assets improving
    Return on assets -54.6% vs -29.4% 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 0.0% of assets vs 0.0% a year ago ($0.0M now).
  • ✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)
    Current ratio 13.42x vs 17.85x 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 rose 1.7% (77.9M → 79.3M 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.
  • · Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
  • · 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.

Cash Runway
9 mo
TIGHT — under a year; likely needs to raise capital soon

Plain English: the company holds about $199M in cash and is burning roughly $279M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 9 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.

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 XENE. 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 XENE 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
—
—

—

⚙ 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 XENE 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$62.35
    Model IVNot applicable — DCF couldn't price this stock. See Reverse DCF and Football Field below.

    A standard discounted cash flow?DCF — 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 Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. because the company exhibits negative operating cash flow and declining revenue, making future cash flows highly uncertain. Investors are likely betting on the success of its drug pipeline rather than current financial performance. The primary quantifiable risk is the continued revenue decline of -20.1% per year, which, if sustained, makes profitability challenging.

    ⚠️ 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.

    XENE Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. stock anatomy showing per-share revenue, operating expenses, free cash flow, and debt
    −4,612.1%
    loss
    Where each $1 of revenue goes
    For every $1 of revenue, XENE currently loses 4,612.1¢ — 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: $62/share buys $0.09 of revenue per share per year, generates $4.36 lost per share per year, and $4.21 of cash burned per share (negative free cash flow). Each share carries $0.00 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.

    THE KEY DEBATE

    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.

    🐂 The Bull Case
    The most important thing for the stock to work is for a key drug candidate in its pipeline to achieve positive clinical trial results and progress towards regulatory approval, which would reverse the current trend of negative net income and operating cash flow.
    🐻 The Bear Case
    The biggest fundamental risk is the continued negative operating cash flow, which, if sustained without successful drug development, could lead to further dilution or liquidity issues.
    📌 Signposts to watch — update your view as these print
    • Upcoming clinical trial data readouts for lead drug candidates
    • New partnership or licensing agreements announced
    • Progress towards regulatory submissions for any drug
    MOMENTUM — WHAT'S GETTING BETTER & WORSE

    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.

    ✅ Improving

    Nothing clearly improving year-over-year.

    ⚠ Worsening
    • Free cash flow is negative at -$333.6M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
    • Still unprofitable at -$345.9M — loss widening.
    WHO

    Management & Leadership

    Simon Pimstone, M.D., Ph.D., has served as Xenon Pharmaceuticals' President and CEO since 2007, also co-founding the company. He leads the strategic direction and clinical development of the company's neurology-focused pipeline.

    Simon Pimstone
    President & Chief Executive Officer
    Ian Mortimer
    Chief Financial Officer
    James Porter
    Chief Scientific Officer
    WHAT

    What They Make

    Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutics for neurological disorders. Its primary customers are patients suffering from conditions like epilepsy and pain.

    End Markets

    Neurological DisordersEpilepsy TreatmentPain Management

    Revenue Drivers

    Drug development milestones
    Partnership agreements
    Future product sales
    Market Cap: 4.9BBeta: 0.99
    WHY

    Why Is It Priced Like This?

    Why Customers Pay

    Addressing unmet medical needs in neurology
    Developing targeted therapies for specific conditions
    Improving patient quality of life
    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.

    The market is pricing XENE based on expectations for its future drug pipeline success, rather than current financial performance, as evidenced by its negative operating cash flow and declining revenue (-20.1%/yr). The market may be assigning value to potential clinical trial successes and regulatory approvals for its neurology drug candidates, which are not in the model. This optionality may or may not materialize, but it drives investor interest in early-stage biotechs.

    HOW

    Business Model & Valuation

    How They Make Money

    Drug development milestones
    Partnership agreements
    Future product sales

    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 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.

    WHEN

    Maturity & Competitive Position

    Growth-stage life sciences

    Moat Signals

    Proprietary drug pipeline
    Specialized scientific expertise in neurology
    Intellectual property protection for drug candidates

    Revenue has been declining at -20.1% per year over the last four years, from $18M to $8M.

    WHERE

    Geography & Markets

    Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. is headquartered in Canada, with its primary operations and clinical trial activities focused in North America. Specific geographic revenue mix is not available from current data sources.

    Geographic Risks

    Clinical trial failure risk (inherent in biotech R&D)
    Regulatory approval risk
    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 neutral - aligned.
    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)    47.6NeutralMomentum 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$56.07Price above (+11.2%)Price above its 50-day average = near-term uptrend.
    200-Day Average$45.46Price 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 (5 notes — click to expand/collapse)
    Guardrail Notes (5)
    • 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%).
    • Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
    • Extreme valuation (P/IV 912.1667x, IV $0.06 vs price $54.73); output dominated by data/units issue (often a multi-class share-count mismatch). Suppressed.
    • DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
    FINANCIALS

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

    From Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).

    Income (5yr)

    YearRevenueNet IncomeEPS
    20257.5M-345.9M$-4.36
    2024—-234.3M$-3.01
    2023—-182.4M$-2.73
    20229.4M-125.4M$-2.06
    202118.4M-78.9M$-1.77

    Cash Flow (5yr)

    YearOperating CFCapEx− SBC & adj.Free Cash Flow
    2025 -279.1M 799,000 53.7M -333.6M
    2024 -181.4M 3.1M 50.7M -235.2M
    2023 -151.1M 5.6M 32.4M -189.1M
    2022 -101.0M 2.9M 20.4M -124.3M
    2021 -69.5M 2.1M 10.0M -81.6M

    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: -279.1M − 799,000 − 53.7M (SBC & adj.) = -333.6M. 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 Assets633.2M
    Total Liabilities51.4M
    Equity581.8M
    YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

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    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 30, 2026 (the analysis-refresh date, not the latest filing period). All models have blind spots. Full disclaimer →
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