Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Ardelyx, Inc. (ARDX)
A forensic read on Ardelyx, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
0.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-17.7
P / E (ttm)
-36.9%
ROE
$982M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
22.1%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Ardelyx, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by inventory days.
What the filings flag
989d
FY2024→FY2025
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 508 to 989 FY2024→FY2025 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +35% vs -22% in cost of sales). Inventory is outrunning what's being sold — a flag for softening demand or obsolescence risk ahead.
-9.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -9.4% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -92% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+15.0%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +52% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+15.0%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~15.0% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~34%.
-$177.0M
FY2023–FY2025
Cash burn vs. reported loss.Over FY2023–FY2025, the company reported a cumulative net loss of $166.8M against operating cash flow of -$177.0M. Cash burn ran heavier than the reported loss — something outside net income (working capital, a cash item not in the P&L) is consuming cash faster than the loss alone implies.
+15.2%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +15.2% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by inventory up +35% against -22% in cost of sales and receivables up +25% against revenue +22%. This is the third straight fiscal year of building accruals — a multi-year streak is a materially stronger tell than a single year's move. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 7% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$407.3M
Revenue Growth YoY+22.1%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+98.4%
Net Margin-15.1%
Free Cash Flow-$44.0M
Return on Equity-36.9%
Debt / Equity1.21x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Ardelyx, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
58d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 44 to 58 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +25% vs revenue +22%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2022–FY2025 the day count ran 29 → 44 → 44 → 58 days — the latest step continues a climb that was already under way, which is the persistence that separates a collection problem from a busy quarter. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-89%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Measured against the same quarter twelve months earlier — like-for-like on the calendar, so an ordinary seasonal build cannot produce it — receivables took longer to collect in 5 consecutive quarters (Jun 2025 +12, Sep 2025 +14, Dec 2025 +7, Mar 2026 +22, Jun 2026 +17 days). In the latest of them the receivable balance grew +60% against sales +24%, so more of a quarter's billings were still outstanding at the period end than a year earlier — money the company has recognized and not yet been paid.
Ardelyx, Inc. (ARDX) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy