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, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.

So should PDS Biotechnology (NASDAQ:PDSB) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

View our latest analysis for PDS Biotechnology

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 2019, PDS Biotechnology had cash of US$17m and such minimal debt that we can ignore it for the purposes of this analysis. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through US$12m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 17 months from September 2019. That's not too bad, but it's fair to say the end of the cash runway is in sight, unless cash burn reduces drastically. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

NasdaqCM:PDSB Historical Debt, November 12th 2019

Because PDS Biotechnology isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage business. So while we can't look to sales to understand growth, we can look at how the cash burn is changing to understand how expenditure is trending over time. Remarkably, it actually increased its cash burn by 673% in the last year. With that kind of spending growth its cash runway will shorten quickly, as it simultaneously uses its cash while increasing the burn rate. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.

While PDS Biotechnology does have a solid cash runway, its cash burn trajectory may have some shareholders thinking ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive 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.

PDS Biotechnology has a market capitalisation of US$15m and burnt through US$12m last year, which is 85% of the company's market value. That suggests the company may have some funding difficulties, and we'd be very wary of the stock.

Even though its cash burn relative to its market cap makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought PDS Biotechnology's cash runway was relatively promising. Considering all the measures mentioned in this report, we reckon that its cash burn is fairly risky, and if we held shares we'd be watching like a hawk for any deterioration. For us, it's always important to consider risks around cash burn rates. But investors should look at a whole range of factors when researching a new stock. For example, it could be interesting to see how much the PDS Biotechnology CEO receives in total remuneration.

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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.

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PDS Biotechnology (NASDAQ:PDSB) Will Have To Spend Its Cash Wisely - Yahoo Finance