Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Midatech Pharma (LON:MTPH) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

Check out our latest analysis for Midatech Pharma

When Might Midatech Pharma Run Out Of Money?

A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at December 2020, Midatech Pharma had cash of UK£7.5m and such minimal debt that we can ignore it for the purposes of this analysis. In the last year, its cash burn was UK£9.5m. Therefore, from December 2020 it had roughly 10 months of cash runway. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Is Midatech Pharma's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In the last year, Midatech Pharma did book revenue of UK£343k, but its revenue from operations was less, at just UK£343k. Given how low that operating leverage is, we think it's too early to put much weight on the revenue growth, so we'll focus on how the cash burn is changing, instead. Over the last year its cash burn actually increased by 39%, which suggests that management are increasing investment in future growth, but not too quickly. However, the company's true cash runway will therefore be shorter than suggested above, if spending continues to increase. Midatech Pharma makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.

Can Midatech Pharma Raise More Cash Easily?

Since its cash burn is moving in the wrong direction, Midatech Pharma shareholders may wish to think ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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.