We're Hopeful That Anixa Biosciences (NASDAQ:ANIX) Will Use Its Cash Wisely

There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

So, the natural question for Anixa Biosciences (NASDAQ:ANIX) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

See our latest analysis for Anixa Biosciences

When Might Anixa Biosciences Run Out Of Money?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. In January 2024, Anixa Biosciences had US$24m in cash, and was debt-free. Importantly, its cash burn was US$6.5m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of about 3.6 years as of January 2024. A runway of this length affords the company the time and space it needs to develop the business. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Anixa Biosciences' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Anixa Biosciences doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just US$210k in the last twelve months. As a result, we think it's a bit early to focus on the revenue growth, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at how the cash burn is changing over time. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 10% over the last year, which suggests that management are maintaining a fairly steady rate of business development, albeit with a slight decrease in spending. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

Can Anixa Biosciences Raise More Cash Easily?

While Anixa Biosciences is showing a solid reduction in its cash burn, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Since it has a market capitalisation of US$87m, Anixa Biosciences' US$6.5m in cash burn equates to about 7.5% of its market value. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.

So, Should We Worry About Anixa Biosciences' Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Anixa Biosciences' cash burn. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. Its weak point is its cash burn reduction, but even that wasn't too bad! Looking at all the measures in this article, together, we're not worried about its rate of cash burn; the company seems well on top of its medium-term spending needs. On another note, Anixa Biosciences has 5 warning signs (and 2 which can't be ignored) we think you should know about.

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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.