We Might See A Profit From Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTGX) Soon

With the business potentially at an important milestone, we thought we'd take a closer look at Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:PTGX) future prospects. Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, develops peptide-based drugs for hematology and blood disorders, and inflammatory and immunomodulatory diseases. The US$1.5b market-cap company announced a latest loss of US$79m on 31 December 2023 for its most recent financial year result. As path to profitability is the topic on Protagonist Therapeutics' investors mind, we've decided to gauge market sentiment. Below we will provide a high-level summary of the industry analysts’ expectations for the company.

Check out our latest analysis for Protagonist Therapeutics

Protagonist Therapeutics is bordering on breakeven, according to the 6 American Biotechs analysts. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2023, before generating positive profits of US$45m in 2024. Therefore, the company is expected to breakeven roughly 12 months from now or less. We calculated the rate at which the company must grow to meet the consensus forecasts predicting breakeven within 12 months. It turns out an average annual growth rate of 50% is expected, which is rather optimistic! Should the business grow at a slower rate, it will become profitable at a later date than expected.

We're not going to go through company-specific developments for Protagonist Therapeutics given that this is a high-level summary, but, take into account that generally biotechs, depending on the stage of product development, have irregular periods of cash flow. This means that a high growth rate is not unusual, especially if the company is currently in an investment period.

One thing we’d like to point out is that Protagonist Therapeutics has no debt on its balance sheet, which is quite unusual for a cash-burning biotech, which typically has high debt relative to its equity. This means that the company has been operating purely on its equity investment and has no debt burden. This aspect reduces the risk around investing in the loss-making company.

Next Steps:

There are key fundamentals of Protagonist Therapeutics which are not covered in this article, but we must stress again that this is merely a basic overview. For a more comprehensive look at Protagonist Therapeutics, take a look at Protagonist Therapeutics' company page on Simply Wall St. We've also compiled a list of relevant aspects you should further examine:

1. Valuation: What is Protagonist Therapeutics worth today? Has the future growth potential already been factored into the price? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Protagonist Therapeutics is currently mispriced by the market.

2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on Protagonist Therapeutics’s board and the CEO’s background.

3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.