Forensic Analysis · Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology · as of Nov 9, 2026
Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. (IOVA)
A forensic read on Iovance Biotherapeutics, 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
Distress
Financial health
-7.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-55.5%
ROE
60.6%
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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -7.3, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-49.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -49.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -65.5%. After-tax operating profit was ($364M) in FY2023 and ($319M) in FY2025, with operating income at -38735.0% of revenue in FY2023, -240.9% in FY2024 and -153.1% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +16% across FY2023–FY2025, from $555M to $642M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -65.5% the older base was already earning. $171M of the $642M base at FY2025 is short-term investments (26.6%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so the loss on the operating capital is larger than this rate shows.
+23.3%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +52% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+23.3%/yr). The count is growing — 235.1M shares in FY2023, 357.3M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~23.3% 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 FY2023 has been diluted ~34%.
23% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 23% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.17 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 23.3% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$263.5M
Revenue Growth YoY+60.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1388.7%
Net Margin-148.4%
Free Cash Flow-$336.2M
Return on Equity-55.5%
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 Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?