Coherus BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHRS) shares have had a really impressive month, gaining 137% after a shaky period beforehand. Not all shareholders will be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down a very disappointing 22% in the last twelve months.

Although its price has surged higher, Coherus BioSciences' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.6x might still make it look like a strong buy right now compared to the wider Biotechs industry in the United States, where around half of the companies have P/S ratios above 10.5x and even P/S above 59x are quite common. Although, it's not wise to just take the P/S at face value as there may be an explanation why it's so limited.

What Does Coherus BioSciences' Recent Performance Look Like?

Recent times haven't been great for Coherus BioSciences as its revenue has been rising slower than most other companies. It seems that many are expecting the uninspiring revenue performance to persist, which has repressed the growth of the P/S ratio. If you still like the company, you'd be hoping revenue doesn't get any worse and that you could pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The Low P/S Ratio?

Coherus BioSciences' P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver very poor growth or even falling revenue, and importantly, perform much worse than the industry.

If we review the last year of revenue growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 44%. However, this wasn't enough as the latest three year period has seen the company endure a nasty 16% drop in revenue in aggregate. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenues over that time.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the seven analysts covering the company suggest revenue should grow by 6.1% per annum over the next three years. That's shaping up to be materially lower than the 120% each year growth forecast for the broader industry.

With this information, we can see why Coherus BioSciences is trading at a P/S lower than the industry. It seems most investors are expecting to see limited future growth and are only willing to pay a reduced amount for the stock.

The Final Word

Coherus BioSciences' recent share price jump still sees fails to bring its P/S alongside the industry median. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

We've established that Coherus BioSciences maintains its low P/S on the weakness of its forecast growth being lower than the wider industry, as expected. Shareholders' pessimism on the revenue prospects for the company seems to be the main contributor to the depressed P/S. Unless these conditions improve, they will continue to form a barrier for the share price around these levels.

Before you settle on your opinion, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Coherus BioSciences (3 are significant!) that you should be aware of.

It's important to make sure you look for a great company, not just the first idea you come across. So if growing profitability aligns with your idea of a great company, take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a low P/E).

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