Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR)
A forensic read on Nektar Therapeutics 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
-28.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-9.1
P / E (ttm)
-182.6%
ROE
$2.5B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-43.9%
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.
Nektar Therapeutics earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -28.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+127.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +127.7% 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 cash-flow cross-check agrees: reported earnings ran ahead of operating cash by 97% of net operating assets.
23% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 23% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.75 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 8.9% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
stopped
FY2024→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $3M of buybacks + dividends in FY2024, but ~$0 in FY2025. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
-$576.8M
FY2023–FY2025
Cash burn vs. reported loss.Over FY2023–FY2025, the company reported a cumulative net loss of $559.1M against operating cash flow of -$576.8M. 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.
n/m (stock split)
FY2022–FY2025
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$55.2M
Revenue Growth YoY-43.9%
Net Margin-297.1%
Free Cash Flow-$208.7M
Return on Equity-182.6%
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 Nektar Therapeutics's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed -91% over the last 3 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2024 consistent with a stock split or reverse split, not gradual buybacks or issuance — a split changes the count with NO effect on any holder's proportional ownership, so the raw -55.2%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
$77M
FY2023–FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $77M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2023 ($77M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.