Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MDGL)
A forensic read on Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, 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
Safe
Financial health
10.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-39.2
P / E (ttm)
-47.8%
ROE
$11.8B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
432.1%
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.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.5, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-31.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -31.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -120% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+9.4%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +31% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+9.4%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. Note: the share count shows a large one-time jump around FY2020, consistent with a reverse split or bankruptcy reorg rather than gradual buybacks, so the earlier shrinkage doesn't reflect real repurchase discipline. That's ~9.4% 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 ~24%.
FCF ($55M)
FY2012
Shareholder returns.Returned $32,000 to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2012, but free cash flow was ($55M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
10% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 10% of revenue in FY2025 — about $4.37 per diluted share. 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 9.4% a year and is falling.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$958.4M
Revenue Growth YoY+432.1%
Net Margin-30.1%
Free Cash Flow-$190.0M
Return on Equity-47.8%
Debt / Equity0.56x
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 Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?