Amyris Stock: Putting Lipstick on a Pig

Synthetic biology is probably the single most exciting technology theme we cover. Nature is the most powerful technology known to man, and we’re not only on the cusp of harnessing it but making it better by using technologies like gene editing. But for investors, synbio has been anything but exciting. Over four years ago, we asked WTF Happened to Synthetic Biology Stocks?, and we find ourselves asking the same question today.

One company discussed in that article was Amyris (AMRS), a firm we looked at later on in a piece titled Amyris Stock – Producing Ingredients Using Synbio. Here’s what we concluded:

While we applaud the vision of synthetic biology leading to a greener future, there are too many moving parts to keep track of in the Amyris business model, and enough red flags for us to avoid the stock going forward.

Nanalyze, June 2021

Over the nine months following our piece, shares of Amyris plummeted from $16.50 a share to $4.71 a share, a loss of 71% compared to a Nasdaq loss of 0.58% over the same time frame. Figuring out why volatile tech stocks plummet isn’t easy, but figuring out whether a company is worth owning at any price is certainly feasible.

A common venial sin synthetic biology companies commit is trying to develop, produce, a