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Arbutus Biopharma

ABUS on Nasdaq. Pharmaceutical preparations. Market value $924m.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Health care stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
annual report to December 2025
-4.3%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-4.29 of spare cash last year. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
6.1×cheap

You pay 6.1 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
-77.4%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns -77 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 40 of 100. Price score: 66 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$4.67 a share, 33% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $3.50 to $5.45.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

-0.1
-0.0
-0.1
-0.1
-0.0
20212022202320242025
Revenue
$11m$39m$18m$6m$14m
Operating margin
-669.1%-167.8%-430.5%-1236.7%-271.0%
Debt to equity
0.000.000.000.000.00
Shares outstanding
0.16bn0.17bn0.19bn0.19bn0.20bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive0 of 5 years
  • Accounting checksSkipped: company is not yet profitable
  • Debt0.00× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 15.3% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 26% more shares since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $1 million last quarter, down 91% on a year ago.
  • A loss of $5 million, after a profit of $3 million a year ago.
  • It keeps 82 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, after losing 387 cents a year earlier.
  • 3% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • It has $19 million more cash than debt, down from $37 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in 1 of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$1m
December 2024$2m
March 2025$2m
June 2025$11m
September 2025$529,000
December 2025$1m
March 2026$179m
June 2026$1m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024-$20m
December 2024-$13m
March 2025-$25m
June 2025$3m
September 2025-$8m
December 2025-$4m
March 2026$170m
June 2026-$5m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
23 March 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
11 November 2026

Who owns it

1 long-term investor we follow owns it, down from 2 last quarter. 177 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

5 investors own more than 5%; 1 of them is pushing for change.

  • Roivant Sciences Ltd.
    Passive investor
    19.5%−1.0 pts
    Since 1 October 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 is hereby amended by adding the following to the end thereof: On August 24, 2026, the Issuer commenced a modified Dutch auction tender offer to purchase for cancellation up to US$230 million in value of its Common Shares at prices between US$5.00 and US$5.75 per Common…

    Read the filing
  • Two Seas Capital LP
    Passive investor
    at least 9.4%+2.9 pts
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 31 March 2026
  • Morgan Stanley
    Passive investor
    at least 8.8%−4.7 pts
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 30 June 2026
  • at least 8.0%0.0 pts
    (filed with 5 related holders)
    Since 4 September 2026
  • Whitefort Capital Master Fund, LP
    Activist
    8.0%−0.1 pts
    Since 24 April 2026

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought or sold on the open market in the last 12 months.

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 23 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 12 Aug 2026 and 6 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from

A big holder just moved. The deep dive shows what the business is worth.

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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.