$48.8 million.
That was Twist Bioscience's gain on the sale of a business in the latest reported period. It still swung to a $35.1 million net loss from a $20.4 million profit a year earlier, even as revenue climbed 23.2% to $118.4 million.
The surface read is familiar for Twist: the business is growing. The less comfortable receipt is that growth did not produce operating profit, and the cash balance got much smaller. Cash fell to $117.4 million from $201.4 million in the comparable period.
Management's explanation for the operating result is a larger expense base, including litigation settlement costs, partly offset by higher revenue and gross profit.
"For the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026, loss from operations increased 20.5% to $36.3 million and 8.2% to $115.0 million, respectively, primarily due to an increase in selling, general and administrative expenses and litigation settlement costs, net of recoveries, offset by increases in both revenues and gross profit and a decrease in research and development expenses."
Twist Bioscience, Form 10-Q, filed Aug. 3, 2026
Revenue growth kept the operating margin almost flat, moving it from negative 31.4% to negative 30.6%. The dollar loss still widened as selling, general and administrative costs and litigation-related items increased, despite higher revenue and gross profit.
The cash flow statement adds another layer. Capital spending rose 77.3% year over year, while free-cash-flow margin fell to negative 20.7%. Inventory grew 35.6%, faster than revenue, and accounts receivable rose 30.5%. Those are observations, not explanations, but they describe a company putting more cash into the operating machine while it remains loss-making.
Twist disclosed the specific working-capital movements this way:
"The net cash outflow from changes in operating assets and liabilities was primarily due to increases in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $19.0 million, primarily driven by insurance receivable for litigation settlement costs, accounts receivable of $8.5 million due to the increase in revenues and the timing of collections, and inventories of $6.9 million to support anticipated demand, substantially offset by increases in accrued expenses and other liabilities of $25.7 million, primarily related to litigation accruals, indirect taxes payable and timing of payments to vendors, accounts payable of $4.6 million and accrued compensation of $3.6 million due to the timing of payments to vendors and employees."
Twist Bioscience, Form 10-Q, filed Aug. 3, 2026
The plain-English version is not that every dollar of the cash decline came from routine operations. Litigation settlement costs and related accruals are prominent in the disclosure, while receivables and inventory also consumed cash. The filing does not reduce the central tension: sales are expanding, but cash generation has not caught up.
The company's annual results show this is part of a longer improvement in operating margins, from negative 70.6% in 2024 to negative 36.2% in 2025, alongside 20.3% annual revenue growth. That history gives the latest loss a broader frame, but it does not erase the current-period cash draw.
Investors are valuing that growth profile at a $5.5 billion market capitalization and 14.1 times enterprise value to sales. With no earnings yield to point to, the latest filing puts more attention on the route from revenue to cash, not merely the speed of revenue growth.
Twist's next quarterly report needs to answer one factual question: how much of the operating cash drain and loss still reflects litigation settlement costs and related accruals?
How much of Twist's operating cash drain remains tied to litigation settlement costs?