Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (VRTX) — Fundamental Analysis & Key Financial Ratios

Kaplio's reading: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated

Updated on September 24, 2026 · accounts published on August 3, 2026

Reading of September 24, 2026: A profitable, cash-rich biotech

Vertex Pharmaceuticals trades at 6.5× book and 20.0× its fiscal 2025 cash, well above the 1.5× to 3× reasonable in biotech.

• Is Vertex Pharmaceuticals expensive or cheap? It trades at 6.5× book value and 20.0× its fiscal 2025 cash, against the 1.5× to 3× biotech treats as reasonable.
• How is the business doing? Revenue grew 9.6 % over the last 12 months and ROIC cleared 10 % in 7 of the last 10 fiscal years.
• How strong is the balance sheet? Debt to equity of 0.10 and a current ratio of 3.19 over the last 12 months, with net cash of $10.62 per share in fiscal 2025.
• What to expect from the next earnings? Next results on November 2, 2026, with consensus at $4.77 EPS and 48 of 56 analysts already at buy.
• How many months of cash does it have left? No burn to count down: operating cash flow of $14.20 per share in fiscal 2025 and debt at 0.6× cash.

Is Vertex Pharmaceuticals expensive or cheap?

Price to book of 6.5× over the last 12 months is the starting point, and it is not a cheap one. Market capitalisation sits at 20.0× fiscal 2025 cash, against the 1.5× to 3× range biotech treats as reasonable, so the balance sheet no longer supports the price. The stock has gained 36 % over the last 12 months and trades 7 % below its 52-week high of $557.96, a long way from the $376.62 low. Its P/E has ranged from 16.1× to 74.2× over the past decade, a spread wide enough to justify almost any conclusion.

How is the business doing?

Revenue grew 9.6 % over the last 12 months, steady rather than spectacular for a sector that sells growth. The more telling figure is returns: ROIC cleared 10 % in 7 of the last 10 fiscal years, from 2016 to 2025, with a worst reading of −26.1 % in 2017. That is a company that has left the loss-making phase of biotech behind. R&D equals 2.8 % of market capitalisation on fiscal 2025 figures, below the 10 % the sector treats as an active pipeline, a ratio pushed down as much by the market value as by the budget.

How strong is the balance sheet?

Debt to equity of 0.10 over the last 12 months makes leverage close to irrelevant, and a current ratio of 3.19 leaves more than three dollars of current assets for every dollar due within a year. The Altman Z score of 11.4 sits deep inside what that score defines as the safe zone. Net cash is $10.62 per share for fiscal 2025, cash of $25.85 less debt of $15.24. It reads comfortably until you set it against the quote: that cushion equals 2.1 % of the current price, so it protects the business rather than the valuation.

What to expect from the next earnings?

The next report lands on November 2, 2026, and analysts expect EPS of $4.77 for the quarter. The record going in is mixed: estimates have been beaten in 4 of the last 8 quarters, and the August 3, 2026 report came in at $4.73 against $4.74 expected, a 0.2 % shortfall. Estimates are barely moving, with the 2026 EPS consensus unchanged at $18.68 over the last 9 days across 11 analysts and revenue estimates equally still. With 48 of 56 analysts at buy and only 1 at sell, upgrades have little room left to help.

How many months of cash does it have left?

Most small biotechs lose money, which makes P/E useless and reduces the analysis to two questions: how long the cash lasts and what the pipeline holds. This company answers the first one easily. Operating cash flow ran at $14.20 per share in fiscal 2025, so there is no burn to count down, and debt equals 0.6× cash, inside the 1× the sector treats as manageable and well short of the 2× limit. The two sector tests it fails are valuation tests: R&D at 2.8 % of market capitalisation against a 10 % threshold, and market capitalisation at 20.0× cash.

How this was prepared: the data comes from companies' official filings, collected by a professional provider, and from Kaplio's analysis engine (trailing-12-month ratios, 10 years of history and sector medians computed across US-listed companies). The text is written from that data alone, every figure is checked against it before publication, and it is reviewed when the company reports results. This is not investment advice.