Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc (LGND)
A forensic read on Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
16.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
39.0
P / E (ttm)
12.2%
ROE
$5.8B
Market cap
60.4%
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.
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 16.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by inventory days.
What the filings flag
331d
FY2017→FY2018
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 214 to 331 FY2017→FY2018 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +63% vs +18% in cost of sales). Inventory is outrunning what's being sold — a flag for softening demand or obsolescence risk ahead.
2.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.4% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 0% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+6.4%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +20% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+6.4%/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 ~6.4% 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 ~17%.
17% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 17% of revenue and 96% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $2.31 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 6.4% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$268.1M
Revenue Growth YoY+60.4%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+11.0%
Net Margin46.4%
Free Cash Flow$48.9M
Return on Equity12.2%
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 Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?