Ascletis Pharma Inc. (ASCLF)
UndervaluedFundamental
22
Price
$8.37
Market Cap
$9.11B
Part 1 · What the company is worth
Overview
Ascletis Pharma is a Hangzhou-based Chinese biotech that develops and, on a small scale, sells drugs. It already markets treatments for hepatitis C, including Ganovo and a ritonavir tablet, in China, but that legacy business generates only minimal revenue. The company has pivoted most of its research toward metabolic disease — obesity and fatty liver — with pipeline candidates like ASC30 and ASC41, and it has also licensed in a China-market NASH drug, denifanstat, from a US partner.
How it makes money
Ascletis earns a small amount of revenue selling its approved hepatitis C drugs in China, but this legacy business is not the point of the company today: most of the value investors are pricing in depends on drug candidates still in clinical trials that generate no revenue at all. Until a metabolic-disease drug such as ASC30 or ASC41 is approved and launched, Ascletis is funded mainly by capital raised from investors rather than by product sales.
The case for
Buyers argue that early obesity data — a Phase 2 US study reported 7.7% weight loss for its oral GLP-1 candidate — puts Ascletis in one of the most closely watched drug categories in the industry, and that its established, revenue-generating hepatitis C franchise shows the company can already get drugs through Chinese regulators and to market.
The case against
Sellers worry that Ascletis' actual product revenue is still minimal, that its valuation rests almost entirely on obesity and metabolic-disease candidates years away from approval in a field crowded with better-funded rivals, and that its pivot away from the older hepatitis C business leaves little near-term commercial base to fall back on.
Written by the editors, published on August 18, 2026
Direct competitors
Who this company fights with for the same customers
Generated on August 23, 2026 with claude-opus-5 — shared with all users
Viking's oral VK2735 tablet targets the same obesity patients with the same oral-pill format, making it the other emerging-biotech contender competing with ASC30 for prescriptions and for a partner or acquirer.
Lilly's orforglipron is the oral small molecule GLP-1 that Ascletis explicitly benchmarks ASC30 against on weight loss and tolerability, and its amylin agonist eloralintide competes head-on with Ascletis' ASC39.
Novo Nordisk defends the obesity market Ascletis is trying to enter, with oral semaglutide and the oral candidate amycretin aimed at exactly the same overweight and type 2 diabetes patients.
Both are clinical-stage biotechs whose entire value rests on a once-daily oral small molecule GLP-1 agonist for chronic weight management, with Structure's aleniglipron and Ascletis' ASC30 running competing global Phase III obesity programmes.
Hengrui's HRS-7535 is the Chinese oral small molecule GLP-1 furthest ahead in obesity and type 2 diabetes, competing with ASC30 both for Chinese patients and for out-licensing deals with Western partners.
Innovent's mazdutide is already the reference weight-loss therapy in China and is the incumbent ASC30 would have to displace in Ascletis' home market.
Balance Sheet & Liquidity
Revenue
$2M
Trailing 12 months to the last reported quarter — estimated from per-share metrics
Net Income
$-387M
Trailing 12 months to the last reported quarter — estimated from per-share metrics
Free Cash Flow
$-364M
Total Equity
$2.69B
Total Liabilities
$4M
Current Ratio
12.92
Interest Coverage
-
Debt/EBITDA
-
Earnings Per Share
Revenue & Net Income
Free Cash Flow
Income Breakdown
Historical statement
Margins over time
Debt over time
How heavy the debt is
Growth grid
Growth — Revenue
Fair Value Estimation
Fair Value
$14.96
Current Price
$8.37
Margin of Safety
+44.1%
Fair Value Range
$9.73 - $20.20
Spread across the valuation methods used, not a statistically calibrated confidence interval.
Estimation Methods
Valuation Metrics
P/E Ratio
-
ROE
-28.6%
P/B Ratio
4.29
P/FCF
-
Gross Margin
26.0%
ROIC
-20.5%
Profitability Radar
Value Creation (Economic Moat)
ROIC
-20.5%
WACC
8.4%
ROIC − WACC
-28.9 pp
ROIC is below the cost of capital — the company is destroying value for every dollar invested.
Fundamental Analysis Criteria
Passed (4)
- Debt/Equity ratio
- Current Ratio
- Analyst Consensus 78% Buy
- Net Margin Trend -17745.6% vs -23455.7%
Failed (10)
- Price CAGR 4.21%
- ROIC -20.5%
- Gross Margin 26.0%
- P/B Ratio 4.29
- Operating Margin -17712.5%
- Positive Free Cash Flow
- DCF valuation (Unknown)
- ROE -18.9%
- Revenue Growth 5Y -43.4%
- Piotroski F-Score 0/9
Unavailable (13)
- EPS data insufficient
- P/FCF NaN
- Dividend Payout NaN%
- CapEx intensity
- Interest Coverage
- Debt/EBITDA
- Return on Tangible Assets
- Low reliance on intangibles
- Price below Graham Number
- Earnings Surprise (Finnhub)
- PEG Ratio (need PE > 0 and growth > 0)
- Earnings Quality (OCF/Net Income)
- Share Dilution (missing shares data)
Piotroski F-Score
Serious financial concerns
Earnings Quality
Low quality: investigate accounting
Share Dilution
Buying back shares. Shareholder friendly
Institutional Holdings
No institutional filings reported for this company.
Governance
Executive Team
| Name | Title | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Jinzi Wu Ph.D. | Founder, Chairman & CEO | 62 |
| Ms. Hejingdao Wu | Senior VP of Operations & Executive Director | 51 |
| Dr. Kristjan Sigurdur Gudmundsson | Senior Consultant & Head of Discovery | 57 |
| Dr. George Zhengzhi Hill | Senior Consultant & Chief Medical Advisor | 74 |
| Mr. John P. Gargiulo M.B.A. | Chief Business Officer | 65 |
Part 2 · The price and when to enter
This part won't tell you whether the company is worth owning: it helps you choose when to buy it, once the fundamentals have convinced you. Inside: technical analysis, potential, historical drawdowns, gamma exposure.
Latest News
Recent headlines for ASCLF, sourced from Markets Gazette.