Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) is focused on gene control therapeutics, but how do you reconcile a stock trading at just $0.0005 as of November 2025 with a median analyst price target of $5.50? The company's financial reality is stark: zero revenue in Q3 2024 and a voluntary delisting from Nasdaq in March 2025, plus a 94% workforce reduction, defintely signal distress. Still, their mission to unlock the potential $800 million U.S. market for their lead candidate, Tamibarotene, is the core driver. You need to know exactly how their business model pivots from R&D burn-which their cash position is expected to fund only into Q3 2025-to future product sales.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) History

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) began with a revolutionary idea: leveraging gene control to treat diseases that traditional methods couldn't touch. The company's history is a classic biotech story of high-risk, high-reward, culminating in a major corporate restructuring in early 2025 after a critical clinical trial miss. This journey, from a promising Cambridge startup to a delisted entity, provides a stark lesson in clinical-stage biopharma volatility.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

The company was initially incorporated on November 9, 2011, as LS22, Inc., before officially transitioning to Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in August 2012.

Original location

Syros was established in the heart of the biotech cluster in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Founding team members

The company emerged from the collaborative efforts of scientific pioneers in gene control research, including James E. Bradner, Nathanael S. Gray, and Richard A. Young.

Initial capital/funding

The initial major funding was a $30 million Series A financing round in April 2013, which was led by ARCH Venture Partners and Flagship Ventures.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The company's trajectory was defintely shaped by a few high-stakes moments, illustrating the binary nature of drug development. The initial success was building a platform around the discovery of Super-Enhancers-master switches for disease genes-which attracted that early $30 million Series A. That was a moment of pure opportunity.

The most recent and transformative period, however, has been one of severe contraction. You can see the impact of the SELECT-MDS-1 trial failure in November 2024 almost immediately, and it forced a complete reset:

• Massive Cost Reduction: The company enacted a 94% workforce reduction in late 2024, a brutal but necessary move to preserve capital.
• Debt Default and Restructuring: The clinical failure triggered a default on a loan agreement, with approximately $43.7 million in loan obligations immediately due. This led to the appointment of a Chief Restructuring Officer in March 2025.
• Nasdaq Delisting: In February 2025, Syros announced its voluntary delisting from Nasdaq, effective in March 2025. This decision followed multiple compliance warnings, including the stock trading below the $1.00 minimum and the Market Value of Publicly Held Shares falling below the $15 million requirement.
• Asset Sale: In April 2025, Syros sold the Tamibarotene-related assets to Rege Nephro, essentially monetizing the remaining value of the failed lead program to further streamline operations.

This sequence of events shifted the company from a clinical-stage oncology developer with a lead asset to a much smaller, private-market entity focused on its remaining pipeline and financial viability. If you want to dive deeper into the financial fallout, you should check out Breaking Down Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Ownership Structure

The ownership structure of Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is heavily concentrated in the hands of retail and other public investors, reflecting the company's current status as an Over-The-Counter (OTC) traded stock following its delisting from Nasdaq in March 2025. This high public float means individual investors, not large institutions, hold the majority of the decision-making power through their collective vote, which is a significant departure from typical publicly traded biotechnology firms.

Given Company's Current Status

Syros Pharmaceuticals is a publicly traded company, but its common stock is no longer listed on a major exchange. Effective March 2025, the company voluntarily delisted from the Nasdaq Global Select Market and deregistered its common stock with the SEC, transitioning to trading on the OTC Pink Sheets (OTCPK:SYRS). This move followed a major clinical trial failure in November 2024 and a subsequent corporate restructuring that included a severe 94% reduction in its workforce by December 2024. The company's market capitalization has contracted dramatically, sitting at approximately $13.42K as of late November 2025. The focus is now on winding down operations or pursuing a strategic transaction for its remaining assets.

Given Company's Ownership Breakdown

The ownership breakdown, based on the most recent filings, shows that the vast majority of shares are held by individual and retail investors. Institutional holdings are minimal, which is a common characteristic for companies that have delisted and are facing significant financial headwinds. This means the stock is highly susceptible to sentiment swings among smaller, individual shareholders.

Here's the quick math: nearly 90% of the company is held by the public, limiting the influence of large, traditional institutional money. For more on the market dynamics, see Exploring Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Given Company's Leadership

The executive team has been significantly streamlined following the major restructuring in late 2024 and early 2025, reflecting the company's focus on managing its wind-down or strategic asset sale rather than traditional drug development. The company no longer maintains a traditional CEO role.

• Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO): Matthew Foster was appointed to this critical role effective March 1, 2025, overseeing the company's financial and operational restructuring.
• Former CEO/President: Gerald Quirk, Esq., who briefly served as President and CEO with an annual salary of $636,000, ceased to serve in that capacity on March 1, 2025, but remains a Director and consultant.
• Board of Directors: The Board saw multiple resignations in February 2025, including former Chairman Peter Wirth and former CEO Nancy Simonian, M.D., leaving a significantly smaller governing body to steer the company's final strategic decisions.

The current leadership structure is defintely focused on asset management and financial stability, not pipeline expansion.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Mission and Values

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s core purpose is to tackle diseases with high unmet medical needs, particularly cancers, by pioneering a new class of gene control medicines. This commitment to innovation and patient focus is their cultural defintely bedrock, even as they navigate a challenging financial environment.

Given Company's Core Purpose

For a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company like Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS), the mission isn't about immediate profit; it's about scientific breakthrough. Their focus on gene control therapeutics aims to address the fundamental causes of disease, which is a massive, long-term endeavor. Their cash position of $58.3 million as of September 2024, which they expect to fund operations into Q3 2025, shows the tight rope they walk between science and finance.

Official mission statement

The mission is clear: revolutionize disease treatment by harnessing the power of gene control, specifically to offer new options for patients with severe and underserved diseases. They are trying to convert previously undruggable gene targets into precise medicines. That's a huge lift.

• Develop new medicines that control gene expression.
• Provide treatment options for patients with unmet needs.
• Overcome challenges in cancer and other diseases.

Vision statement

The vision is to fundamentally change how we treat cancer and blood disorders. They want to move beyond incremental improvements to deliver transformative new medicines. This is the big picture that keeps researchers coming in every day, despite the company's voluntary delisting from Nasdaq in March 2025.

• Deliver transformative new medicines.
• Redefine the standard of care for cancer and blood disorders.
• Establish precision medicine as the global standard of care.

Given Company slogan/tagline

While Syros Pharmaceuticals doesn't use a single, catchy tagline in the way a consumer brand would, their operational identity is centered on their unique scientific approach. They are consistently described as a company 'advancing a new wave of medicines to control the expression of genes.' This technical phrasing is their true slogan-it's what they do.

Their core values support this audacious vision, focusing on the patient first, then the science. Their four key values are: Innovation, Patient Focus, Integrity, and Collaboration. For investors, understanding these non-financial drivers is just as important as knowing their 2024 revenue of $8.7 million. You can dig deeper into the money side by reading Exploring Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) How It Works

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. operates by using its proprietary Gene Control Platform (a drug discovery engine) to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics that modulate the expression of disease-driving genes, primarily focusing on hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.

The company's core value creation model-identifying and drugging noncoding regions of the genome-is currently under severe stress following the failure of a key Phase 3 trial and subsequent operational restructuring, including a 94% reduction in its workforce completed by December 2024.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Product/Service Portfolio

As of November 2025, the product portfolio reflects a significant strategic shift, with the lead asset's rights largely divested and other assets being explored for business development or continued early-stage development.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Operational Framework

The company's operational framework centers on its gene control research, but its capacity has been drastically curtailed by a massive workforce reduction and financial distress, including a default on a loan of approximately $43.7 million in November 2024. The focus has shifted from advancing a broad pipeline to preserving capital and monetizing remaining assets.

Here's the quick math: The company reported a cash position of approximately $58 million as of the third quarter of 2024, which was expected to fund operations only into the third quarter of 2025. This limited cash runway forced the rapid restructuring.

• Regulatory Genomics: Use the Gene Control Platform to systematically map non-coding regions of the genome to identify disease-driving transcriptional control elements.
• Translational Science: Select patient populations based on molecular biomarkers, aiming for a disciplined clinical strategy to maximize the potential for clinical benefit.
• Asset Monetization: Actively seeking partnerships or outright sales for remaining assets, such as the CDK7 inhibitor SY-5609, to generate non-dilutive capital and stave off a wind-down of operations.
• Streamlined Operations: Following the delisting from Nasdaq in March 2025, the company is operating as a much smaller, private-like entity focused on minimal burn rate.

Honestly, the company's ability to generate significant revenue is severely limited; projected annual revenue is expected to decline to around $1.67 million for the 2025 fiscal year.

You can gain more insight into the company's shifting ownership and market sentiment by Exploring Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Strategic Advantages

Syros's remaining strategic advantages are concentrated in its foundational technology and the biological novelty of its drug candidates, even as its financial and operational stability is defintely compromised.

• Gene Control Expertise: Possesses a unique, proprietary platform for targeting the regulatory genome, which is a largely untapped area of drug discovery.
• First-in-Class Potential: SY-5609, the selective CDK7 inhibitor, represents a potential first-in-class asset, which could attract a buyer or partner despite the company's financial headwinds.
• Biomarker-Driven Development: The core strategy of selecting patient populations based on molecular biomarkers (like RARA-positive in myeloid cancers) is a sound approach in precision oncology, even if the initial Phase 3 trial failed.
• Prior Collaboration Success: The company demonstrated its platform's value through prior collaboration revenue, including $7.5 million from the TYK2 program with Takeda in 2024, proving the platform's ability to attract major pharmaceutical partners.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) How It Makes Money

Syros Pharmaceuticals, as a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, does not currently generate meaningful revenue from commercial product sales, relying instead on capital raises and strategic collaboration payments to fund its costly research and development (R&D) pipeline.

The company's financial model is a high-risk, high-reward structure where value is derived from the progress of its drug candidates, like Tamibarotene, toward regulatory approval and eventual commercialization, not from current sales.

Syros Pharmaceuticals' Revenue Breakdown

To be clear, for the 2025 fiscal year, Syros Pharmaceuticals is projected to have minimal to no revenue, with analyst consensus forecasting $0.00 million in sales following the termination of a key collaboration agreement. The company's revenue streams have historically been volatile, tied directly to milestones in its drug development partnerships.

Here's the quick math: with a collaboration termination and no commercial product launch, the top line is essentially zero. This is typical for a biotech firm awaiting pivotal trial results and regulatory decisions.

Business Economics

The economics of Syros Pharmaceuticals are defined by its pre-commercial status, meaning the business is capital-intensive with significant negative free cash flow. The entire valuation rests on the pipeline, which is a binary risk: success or failure in clinical trials.

• R&D as the Cost Center: Research and development is the primary expense, totaling $20.5 million in the third quarter of 2024 alone, though this was a decrease from the prior year. This spending is the engine of future revenue.
• Pipeline Value: The lead asset, Tamibarotene, is the core value driver, targeting a US market opportunity estimated at over $800 million for higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with RARA overexpression. This potential blockbuster status is what attracts investors despite the current lack of revenue.
• Pricing Strategy: As a precision medicine, the eventual pricing for Tamibarotene, if approved, will be a premium specialty drug price, reflecting the high R&D cost and the significant unmet need in hematologic malignancies.
• Financing Cycle: The company operates on a 'fund-the-burn' model, raising capital through equity offerings or strategic deals to cover the net loss until a drug is approved and commercialized. The voluntary delisting from Nasdaq in March 2025 and subsequent SEC deregistration complicated this cycle, increasing the difficulty and cost of future capital raises.

For a deeper dive into the capital structure, you should be Exploring Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Syros Pharmaceuticals' Financial Performance

As of November 2025, the company's financial health is under extreme pressure, reflecting the high burn rate and the critical need for new financing following the exhaustion of its existing cash runway.

• Cash Position: Cash and cash equivalents were $58.3 million as of September 30, 2024. This cash was expected to fund operations only into the third quarter of 2025. Given that we are now in November 2025, this suggests the company has either secured new, unannounced financing or is facing an imminent liquidity crisis.
• Net Loss: The net loss for the third quarter of 2024 was $6.4 million, a significant improvement from the $40.1 million loss in the same period of 2023, primarily due to expense reduction and a workforce cut of 35%. This shows management is defintely focused on extending the runway.
• Market Valuation: The company's market capitalization is extremely low, reflecting the high financial risk. The Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratio, a key metric for pre-commercial biotechs, is nearly meaningless when revenue is near zero, but the Price-to-Book (P/B) ratio of 0.00 indicates a distressed valuation relative to its book value.

What this estimate hides is the true cost of the delisting and the ongoing need for significant capital to prepare for the New Drug Application (NDA) filing and commercial launch of Tamibarotene, a process that will require hundreds of millions of dollars.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Market Position & Future Outlook

Syros Pharmaceuticals is currently in a highly precarious, transitional phase, shifting from a late-stage clinical focus on tamibarotene to a strategic pivot centered on its earlier-stage CDK7 inhibitor, SY-5609, following a major Phase 3 clinical failure in November 2024. The company's market position is that of a micro-cap biotech with a valuation of approximately $13.41 thousand as of mid-November 2025, reflecting significant financial distress and a near-term focus on corporate survival over market expansion.

Competitive Landscape

In the oncology and hematology space, Syros's competitive positioning is defined less by market share-which is effectively zero for its pipeline-and more by the novelty of its remaining technology. The company competes with other small-cap biotechs that also rely on platform technology and pipeline success for valuation, often in a winner-take-all environment for specific drug targets.

Here's the quick math: Syros's market cap of $13.41 thousand is dwarfed by even a peer like Carisma Therapeutics at around $1.91 million, illustrating its extremely small footprint.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company's future hinges on its ability to monetize its remaining assets and manage its immediate liquidity crisis. The failure of the lead program has forced a rapid, high-risk strategic shift.

Industry Position

Syros is currently a distressed asset within the biotechnology industry, having voluntarily delisted from the Nasdaq and enacted a 94% workforce reduction in November 2024 to conserve cash. The company's revenue for the last twelve months as of Q3 2024 was only $0.39 million, underscoring the severity of its financial contraction. What this estimate hides is the total reliance on a successful pivot or a strategic transaction to avoid a full wind-down of operations.

• Pivot to SY-5609: The company is now solely focused on its oral, highly selective CDK7 inhibitor, which is in earlier-stage development for solid tumors and represents the only viable path forward.
• Liquidity Crisis: The immediate priority is negotiating a forbearance agreement for the defaulted loan and securing additional financing to extend the cash runway past Q3 2025.
• Technology Value: The underlying gene control platform is still technically a competitive advantage, but its value is now entirely theoretical until a new drug candidate proves clinical efficacy.

For a deeper dive into the institutional money still involved, you might find Exploring Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SYRS) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why? useful. The situation is defintely a high-risk, high-reward bet on a single asset's future.