Unfortunately for some shareholders, the Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRIS) share price has dived 26% in the last thirty days, prolonging recent pain. For any long-term shareholders, the last month ends a year to forget by locking in a 75% share price decline.

After such a large drop in price, Curis' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 2.7x might 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 10.3x and even P/S above 61x are quite common. However, the P/S might be quite low for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

See our latest analysis for Curis

What Does Curis' Recent Performance Look Like?

With revenue growth that's inferior to most other companies of late, Curis has been relatively sluggish. The P/S ratio is probably low because investors think this lacklustre revenue performance isn't going to get any better. If this is the case, then existing shareholders will probably struggle to get excited about the future direction of the share price.

Want the full picture on analyst estimates for the company? Then our free report on Curis will help you uncover what's on the horizon.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The Low P/S Ratio?

In order to justify its P/S ratio, Curis would need to produce anemic growth that's substantially trailing the industry.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered virtually the same number to the company's top line as the year before. Whilst it's an improvement, it wasn't enough to get the company out of the hole it was in, with revenue down 2.6% overall from three years ago. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenue over that time.

Turning to the outlook, the next three years should generate growth of 29% per year as estimated by the six analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is forecast to expand by 115% per year, which is noticeably more attractive.

With this in consideration, its clear as to why Curis' P/S is falling short industry peers. 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

Having almost fallen off a cliff, Curis' share price has pulled its P/S way down as well. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

We've established that Curis 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. The company will need a change of fortune to justify the P/S rising higher in the future.

Before you take the next step, you should know about the 5 warning signs for Curis (2 are significant!) that we have uncovered.

If strong companies turning a profit tickle your fancy, then you'll want to check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a low P/E (but have proven they can grow earnings).

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