Sutro Biopharma, Inc. (STRO) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 7, 2026
Sutro Biopharma, Inc. (STRO)
A forensic read on Sutro Biopharma, 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
-20.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
$415M
Market cap
65.2%
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.
Sutro Biopharma, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -20.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-308.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -308.4% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from -33% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
OCF ($82M)
FY2021
Shareholder returns.Returned $7,000 to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2021, while operating cash flow itself was ($82M) — zero or negative. Capex isn't disclosed for FY2021, but free cash flow can't have been positive when operating cash flow already isn't, so the entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business generated.
n/m (stock split)
FY2022–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed -83% 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 -44.9%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
14% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 14% of revenue in FY2025 — about $1.65 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 12.8% a year and is falling.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$102.5M
Revenue Growth YoY+65.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+14.8%
Net Margin-186.5%
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 Sutro Biopharma, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?