PLIANT THERAPEUTICS, INC. (PLRX) stock intrinsic value fair value estimate & owner earnings analysis

Pliant Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with no products for sale. Revenue was $57.1 million in 2019 and $41.8 million in 2020 from its collaboration with Novartis, fell to $7.6 million in 2021 and $9.7 million in 2022, and has been essentially zero since 2024. Its lead program, bexotegrast, was discontinued in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in June 2025. The lead candidate is now PLN-101095, an oral drug for solid tumors resistant to immune checkpoint inhibitors, which has completed only an early Phase 1 dose-escalation trial and is moving to a Phase 1b expansion trial. What the business earns: on our owner-earnings basis (operating cash flow less working-capital swings, less stock compensation, less maintenance capital spending) the company has lost money every year, between about $1.94 and $3.40 per share in each of 2020 to 2025 (2025: about $2.26 per share, or roughly $139 million). Stock compensation of $26 million in 2025 was treated as a real cost. There is no earnings stream to capitalise, and we do not credit any value to PLN-101095 because it has no approval and no revenue. Nothing that can be named and evidenced today produces future earnings, so the operating business is worth $0 in all three cases. What does exist is cash: about $192.4 million in cash and short-term investments at December 31, 2025, roughly $3.10 per share on about 61.4 million weighted diluted shares, with the Oxford loan voluntarily prepaid after the June 2025 decision. The company says this funds operations for at least 12 months. Cash burned in operations was $128 million in 2025 and $156 million in 2024, and management expects research spending to fall. The cases therefore value what is left of the cash after the spending we can see: Bear ($1.00 per share): Phase 1b data disappoint, the company winds down or spends much of its cash on programs that produce nothing, and about a third of today's cash is left for shareholders. Base ($1.50 per share): the company continues to fund PLN-101095 for roughly another year and a half at a reduced burn rate without creating value we can evidence, leaving about half of today's cash. Bull ($2.50 per share): spending is cut sharply and most of the cash is preserved. We do not assume PLN-101095 succeeds, because no evidence supports that today. The margin-of-safety price of $0.75 sits well below the bear case because the cash is being spent every quarter and the company has said it will need more capital to complete development, which would dilute existing holders. What would make this wrong: a successful Phase 1b result that draws a partner with upfront payments would be worth far more than these cases, but that has not happened. Conversely, a further large cash burn, or new share issuance at low prices, would make the cases too high. The company does not give a spending figure for 2026, so the cash left in each case is our estimate.