We're Interested To See How Intra-Cellular Therapies (NASDAQ:ITCI) Uses Its Cash Hoard To Grow

Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. 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. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Intra-Cellular Therapies (NASDAQ:ITCI) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for Intra-Cellular Therapies

Does Intra-Cellular Therapies Have A Long Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. As at September 2023, Intra-Cellular Therapies had cash of US$493m and no debt. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through US$162m. So it had a cash runway of about 3.1 years from September 2023. Importantly, though, analysts think that Intra-Cellular Therapies will reach cashflow breakeven before then. If that happens, then the length of its cash runway, today, would become a moot point. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Well Is Intra-Cellular Therapies Growing?

We reckon the fact that Intra-Cellular Therapies managed to shrink its cash burn by 47% over the last year is rather encouraging. But it was the operating revenue growth of 123% that really shone. It seems to be growing nicely. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

How Easily Can Intra-Cellular Therapies Raise Cash?

While Intra-Cellular Therapies seems to be in a decent position, we reckon it is still worth thinking about how easily it could raise more cash, if that proved desirable. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

Intra-Cellular Therapies' cash burn of US$162m is about 3.1% of its US$5.2b market capitalisation. 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 Intra-Cellular Therapies' Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Intra-Cellular Therapies' cash burn. In particular, we think its revenue growth stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. And even its cash burn reduction was very encouraging. There's no doubt that shareholders can take a lot of heart from the fact that analysts are forecasting it will reach breakeven before too long. After considering a range of factors in this article, we're pretty relaxed about its cash burn, since the company seems to be in a good position to continue to fund its growth. Taking an in-depth view of risks, we've identified 1 warning sign for Intra-Cellular Therapies that you should be aware of before investing.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

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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.