Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Cogent Biosciences, Inc. (COGT)
A forensic read on Cogent Biosciences, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
12.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-13.7
P / E (ttm)
-51.7%
ROE
$7.0B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-65.0%
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.
Cogent Biosciences, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 12.0, placing it in the Grey zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+110.3%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +110.3% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by payables paid down 21% on the year. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 18% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
+29.9%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +119% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+29.9%/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 ~29.9% 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 ~54%.
76% of rev
FY2020
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 76% of revenue in FY2020. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 30.0% a year and is falling.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$7.9M
Revenue Growth YoY-65.0%
Net Margin-950.4%
Free Cash Flow-$266.0M
Return on Equity-51.7%
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 Cogent Biosciences, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?