Is Apellis Pharmaceuticals a Bargain After Sharp 2025 Rebound Despite Weak PE Signals?

• If you are wondering whether Apellis Pharmaceuticals is a beaten down biotech bargain or a value trap at today’s price, you are not alone. This breakdown is designed to give you a clear, no jargon view of where the value really sits.
• The stock has bounced about 4.2% over the last week and 11.2% in the last month, even though it is still down roughly 33.1% year to date and 33.7% over the past year. This combination often signals shifting market expectations rather than a simple trend.
• Recent trading has been heavily influenced by changing sentiment around the Apellis Pharmaceuticals pipeline and competitive landscape, with investors weighing the long term potential of its complement inhibitor therapies against execution and regulatory risks. Ongoing discussion around its flagship drug, potential future indications, and how it compares with rivals has added both excitement and volatility. This is exactly why a closer look at valuation matters now.
• Right now, Apellis Pharmaceuticals scores 2/6 on our valuation checks, meaning it looks undervalued on two key measures but fails to clear the bar on four others. We will walk through the usual valuation approaches next and then finish with a more holistic way to think about what the market might be missing.

Apellis Pharmaceuticals scores just 2/6 on our valuation checks. See what other red flags we found in the full valuation breakdown.

Approach 1: Apellis Pharmaceuticals Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Analysis

A Discounted Cash Flow model estimates what a company is worth by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them back to today’s dollars. For Apellis Pharmaceuticals, the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity model starts with last twelve months free cash flow of about $77.7 Million in $.

Analysts expect free cash flow to rise sharply, with projections reaching roughly $241.6 Million by 2029 in $. Beyond the explicit analyst window, Simply Wall St extrapolates cash flows further out, assuming growth moderates over time as the business matures. All of these future cash flows are discounted back to their value today using an appropriate required return for equity investors.

On this basis, the model estimates an intrinsic value of about $87.22 per share. Compared with the current market price, this implies Apellis is trading at a 74.6% discount to its DCF value. This indicates the stock appears undervalued on cash flow fundamentals.

Result: UNDERVALUED

Our Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis suggests Apellis Pharmaceuticals is undervalued by 74.6%. Track this in your watchlist or portfolio, or discover 910 more undervalued stocks based on cash flows.

Head to the Valuation section of our Company Report for more details on how we arrive at this Fair Value for Apellis Pharmaceuticals.

Approach 2: Apellis Pharmaceuticals Price vs Earnings

For profitable companies like Apellis Pharmaceuticals, the price to earnings, or PE, ratio is a useful yardstick because it links what investors pay for the stock directly to the profits the business is generating today. In general, faster earnings growth and lower perceived risk justify a higher PE, while slower growth or higher risk usually mean a lower, more conservative multiple is appropriate.

Apellis currently trades on a PE of about 62.41x. That is well above the broader Biotechs industry average of roughly 19.31x and also higher than the 41.26x average of its peers. This suggests the market is already pricing in strong growth and successful execution. To refine this view, Simply Wall St calculates a proprietary Fair Ratio of 29.49x for Apellis. This represents the PE you might expect once you factor in its specific earnings growth profile, profit margins, risk characteristics, industry positioning, and market cap.

This Fair Ratio is more tailored than a simple comparison with peers or the sector because it adjusts for the company’s own strengths and weaknesses rather than assuming one size fits all. When compared with the current 62.41x PE, the 29.49x Fair Ratio implies Apellis shares look stretched on an earnings multiple basis.

Result: OVERVALUED

PE ratios tell one story, but what if the real opportunity lies elsewhere? Discover 1442 companies where insiders are betting big on explosive growth.

Upgrade Your Decision Making: Choose your Apellis Pharmaceuticals Narrative

Earlier we mentioned that there is an even better way to understand valuation, so let us introduce you to Narratives, which are simply the stories investors tell about a company that are backed up by their own assumptions for future revenue, earnings, margins and ultimately fair value.

On Simply Wall St, Narratives live in the Community page and help you connect Apellis Pharmaceuticals real world story to a structured forecast and a single fair value number, so you can easily compare that fair value with today’s share price to decide whether it looks like a buy, hold or sell for you.

Narratives are dynamic, updating automatically when fresh information like earnings, clinical data or news headlines comes in, so the fair value and key drivers adjust in real time without you needing to rebuild a model from scratch.

For example, one Apellis Narrative might assume strong kidney disease uptake and sustained SYFOVRE leadership, leading to a higher fair value near recent bullish targets of around $60 per share. A more cautious Narrative could lean on slower adoption, execution risks and tighter pricing, resulting in a fair value closer to the lower end of recent analyst targets near $19. The gap between those views is exactly what you can explore and refine using Narratives.

Do you think there's more to the story for Apellis Pharmaceuticals? Head over to our Community to see what others are saying!

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.

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