Here's a classic biotech story: a company develops a technology, licenses it out, and then waits for the royalty checks to roll in. For Xencor Inc. (XNCR), the checks for one of its licensed products just stopped coming from one very important market.

On Wednesday, Xencor said it is revising its revenue outlook for royalties tied to Ultomiris. The company announced that its licensee, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, has stated it does not owe additional royalties for Ultomiris (ravulizumab-cwvz) sales in the United States.

For those keeping score, Alexion is now part of AstraZeneca Plc (AZN), which completed its acquisition of the company in July 2021 for approximately $39 billion. So, this isn't a dispute with a small player.

Company Seeks Resolution

"Xencor has reasonably assumed that the multiple licensees of our XmAb Fc domains and technologies remit payments in accordance with the terms of their respective agreements," said Bassil Dahiyat, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Xencor. "One licensee has expressed disagreement regarding payments for net sales of Ultomiris in the United States, and we plan to work toward a resolution in this matter. Importantly, we have not observed a change in payments related to ex-U.S. sales."

In other words: We thought everyone was paying up correctly. One big partner now says it doesn't owe us for U.S. sales, but we're going to try to sort this out. And, for now, the money from sales everywhere else is still coming in.

Prior Royalty Expectations

This isn't just a minor accounting quibble. Xencor previously said that following the issuance of a specific U.S. patent, it expected to receive an estimated $100 million to $120 million in aggregate through 2028 in low single-digit royalties on U.S. net sales of Ultomiris. That's a significant chunk of future revenue that is now in question.

Updated Cash Outlook

Naturally, this has an impact on the company's financial planning. Xencor lowered its 2026 cash outlook to $380 million–$400 million, down from its earlier $400 million–$430 million forecast. The silver lining? The company still expects its cash runway to support operations into mid-2028. So, while the dispute may hit the top line, it doesn't immediately threaten the company's ability to keep the lights on and fund its research.

Analyst View On Xencor

How are the pros looking at this? William Blair sees the royalty news as a slight negative. However, the firm ultimately expects that clinical trial updates from Xencor's wholly owned pipeline in 2026 will be the more impactful catalysts for the company. Therefore, William Blair reiterates an Outperform rating on the stock.

Xencor Technical Analysis

Let's look at the stock's recent moves. Currently, XNCR is trading 12.5% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) and 15.3% below its 100-day SMA, indicating some short-term weakness.

Zooming out provides more context. Over the past 12 months, shares have increased by 83%, and they are currently positioned closer to their 52-week highs than lows. So, despite recent pressure, the longer-term trend has been strongly positive.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is sitting right at 50.00, which is considered neutral territory, suggesting that the stock is neither overbought nor oversold based on recent price momentum.

Meanwhile, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator is at 0.10, below its signal line at 0.15. This is typically read as indicating bearish pressure on the stock.

The combination of a neutral RSI and a bearish MACD suggests mixed momentum for XNCR at the moment.

• Key Resistance: $15.00
• Key Support: $10.00

Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy Rating with an average price target of $30.44. Recent analyst moves include:

• Barclays: Overweight (Raises Target to $27.00) (Feb. 26)
• Truist Securities: Initiated with Buy (Target $29.00) (Nov. 24, 2025)

XNCR Price Action: Xencor shares were down 0.08% at $12.73 during premarket trading on Thursday, according to market data.