Cartesian Therapeutics, Inc. (RNAC) stock intrinsic value fair value estimate & owner earnings analysis

Cartesian Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Its lead candidate, Descartes-08, is an mRNA-engineered cell therapy for myasthenia gravis and other autoimmune diseases; the Phase 3 AURORA trial in myasthenia gravis began in May 2025. The company has no approved product. Revenue was $38.9 million in 2024 (largely collaboration and license income from the former Selecta business) and fell to about $2.8 million in 2025. Owner earnings, meaning operating cash flow less stock compensation and capital spending, have been negative in every recent year: roughly -$14.29 per share in 2023, -$2.27 in 2024 and -$3.46 in 2025 (about -$90 million in 2025). Operating cash burn was about $74 million in 2025. A one-off positive year in 2020, driven by an upfront licensing payment, does not represent a repeating earnings stream. We could not isolate the working-capital line from the filings' tagged data, so it is not separately deducted; given the size of the burn it would not change the picture. Bear, base and bull cases: we value the shares at $0 in all three. Nothing the company owns today produces earnings that we can point to in contracts, backlog or a repeatable track record. The Phase 3 outcome, any FDA approval and any commercial sales have not yet happened, so they are not credited, even in the bull case. The company held about $148 million of cash at June 30, 2026, but at the current burn that funds roughly two years of trial costs rather than adding to value, and further share issuance is likely, which would dilute current holders. Because an unspent-cash floor is being consumed by the program, we do not count it as value. What would make this wrong: a successful AURORA readout and approval would create a business worth far more than zero, and the shares could be worth considerably more than this analysis shows. That is a binary outcome we cannot underwrite from evidence today. We would revisit after the trial data are reported. Margin-of-safety price: $0 on current evidence. A price above zero would be considered only once the trial has read out positively and funding is secured; the valuation would then be rebuilt from real results.