Arcus Biosciences Inc (RCUS)
🔔 Watch stock
Arcus builds drugs meant to teach the immune system to recognize cancer cells again — and the stock is a market darling: up 234 percent in a year, close to its 52-week high. Yet it blinks in our warning scanner "Going Concern (Distress-Proxy)". We read the annual report (10-K) for 2025 and the quarterly report (10-Q) as of March 31, 2026: not a cent of product revenue, $1.5 billion in accumulated losses — but also about $1.0 billion in cash, no doubt from the auditor about the company's survival, and in Gilead a billion-dollar partner that owns a quarter of the firm. Not investment advice — just an honest look in the till behind the red warning light.
Basics
Performance
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
–Not yet rated — we only show a category once an SEC-backed file with at least two cited passages is available. How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | -1.03 | – | 26 | -16.10 | -361.50 | -100 | -101 |
| 2025: Q1 | -1.14 | – | 28 | -80.70 | -400.00 | -132 | -133 |
| 2025: Q2 | -0.08 | – | 160 | 310.30 | -5.00 | -133 | -133 |
| 2025: Q3 | -1.27 | – | 26 | -45.80 | -519.20 | -97 | -97 |
| 2025: Q4 | -0.91 | – | 33 | 26.90 | -297.00 | -120 | -121 |
| 2026: Q1 | -1.02 | – | 17 | -39.30 | -752.90 | -138 | -138 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
About $1.0 billion in cash and securities (December 31, 2025), runway per the annual report into at least the second half of 2028, no going-concern qualification, low debt (debt-to-equity about 0.2), positive equity. For a clinical biotech, a comfortable starting position.
No product revenue, net loss $353 million (2025), accumulated deficit $1.5 billion, operating cash outflow risen to a record $482 million. Fundamental rating D, Piotroski 0 of 9, Altman Z around 1.03 — precisely what triggers the distress proxy.
Gilead Sciences holds about 25.1 percent, appoints three board members and supplies almost all revenue through collaboration and option payments ($214 of $247 million in 2025). Backbone and cluster risk in one: if Gilead passes on a program, money and experience are missing — and the market reads that as a warning signal.
Broad pipeline with lead compound casdatifan (HIF-2-alpha, renal cell cancer, peak-sales opportunity per the 10-K of more than $2 billion), domvanalimab (TIGIT, Phase 3 lung cancer), zimberelimab and quemliclustat. The value hangs on binary trial results (including PEAK-1, STAR-121) that no one can predict with certainty.
Intact uptrend (Stage 2), RS rating 93, only 3.8 percent below the 52-week high, plus 234 percent over twelve months, about 72 percent institutional ownership (data as of July 8, 2026). A clear momentum vote — that likewise hangs on the next trial data.
Arcus is the teaching case for why a warning-scanner hit is not the same as a restructuring case. The "Going Concern (Distress-Proxy)" triggers because the company earns no profit and burns cash — for a clinical biotech without product revenue the normal state. Behind it, however, stand about $1.0 billion in cash, no going-concern qualification, little debt and, in Gilead, a billion-dollar partner that holds a quarter. The real risk lies not in the balance sheet, but in the clinic and in the dependence on this one partner. Not investment advice.
- The "revenue" of Arcus consists almost entirely of collaboration and option payments (above all from Gilead, plus the partner Taiho) and therefore fluctuates with contract milestones, not with product demand — Arcus has no approved product.
- The scanner hit "Going Concern (Distress-Proxy)" is by definition a quantitative approximation and not an auditor qualification; the auditor did not cast doubt on the survival of Arcus.
- Price, valuation and scanner figures are dated to July 8, 2026 (about $30, about $3.8 billion in market value); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument.
About the Company
Arcus Biosciences, Inc., ein biopharmazeutisches Unternehmen im klinischen Stadium, entwickelt und vermarktet Krebstherapien in den USA.
| IPO Year | 2018 |
|---|---|
| Next Earnings | 5. Aug 2026 |
Chart
Data as of: July 2, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.