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TWST Surges As Twist Bioscience Lands Lilly AI TuneLab Deal

JACK KELLOGG•UPDATED SEP. 18, 2026, 4:08 PM ET
Reviewed by Tim Sykesand Fact-checked by Ellis Hobbs

Twist Bioscience Corporation stocks have been trading up by 7.35 percent after upbeat synthetic biology expansion news boosted investor optimism.

What Traders Need To Know

  • Leerink lifted its price target on Twist Bioscience from $120 to $160 and kept an Outperform rating, pointing to conservative revenue goals and a large AI drug discovery runway.
  • A new agreement embeds Twist Bioscience antibody characterization data and services into Eli Lilly’s AI/ML TuneLab platform, feeding wet-lab results directly into Lilly’s discovery models.
  • Shares popped more than 4% on the Lilly TuneLab news, showing how AI-aligned pharma collaborations can act as fast catalysts for TWST.
  • UBS began coverage with a Neutral rating but a $144 target, still implying notable upside while taking a more cautious stance than Leerink.
  • Management said AI-designed mini-binder work for Anthropic is already baked into the fiscal 2027 outlook, limiting near-term upside surprise from that specific project.

Candlestick Chart

Weekly Update Sep 14 – Sep 18, 2026: On Friday, September 18, 2026 Twist Bioscience Corporation stock [NASDAQ: TWST] is trending up by 7.35%! Discover the key drivers behind this movement as well as our expert analysis in the detailed breakdown below.

Healthcare industry expert:

Analyst sentiment – positive

Twist Bioscience holds a leading position in synthetic DNA and antibody libraries, with 52% gross margin and nearly 10% three-year revenue CAGR off a $377 million base, validating demand and pricing power. However, EBIT margin at -32% and ROIC around -14% underscore a business still far from economic profitability. Cash burn is moderating: quarterly operating cash flow has turned slightly positive, and free cash outflow of ~$8.6 million is manageable against $167 million in cash and modest leverage (0.21x debt/equity).

Technically, TWST is in a powerful momentum-driven uptrend, with the weekly range moving from ~$135 to ~$167 in four sessions and multiple gap-like moves implying aggressive institutional buying. Intraday 5-minute action shows strong upside candles with only shallow pullbacks and rising volume on rallies, confirming buyers in control. The actionable level is $155–157: that prior breakout and consolidation area should now act as first support and a tactical add zone, with risk tightly defined below $150 on a closing basis.

Recent Lilly TuneLab and Anthropic AI-related agreements firmly position Twist as a critical wet-lab partner for AI-driven drug discovery, a structural growth vector where tools peers trade at premium multiples. Leerink’s $160 target and UBS’s $144 initiation confirm the stock’s rerating versus healthcare and diagnostics benchmarks, which grow slower and lack similar AI leverage. I expect continued outperformance, with near-term resistance around $170 and an intermediate 6–12 month upside target of $190 as execution on AI collaborations scales.

More Breaking News

Quick Financial Overview

Twist Bioscience Corporation is trading in a strong uptrend, with weekly prices stepping from the low-$130s into the high-$160s in just a few days. The sharp push from $143 to $157 and then to $166.99 reflects aggressive buying after the Eli Lilly TuneLab deal and the Leerink price target hike. For short-term traders, this kind of parabolic leg often leads to either continuation on positive news follow-through or a consolidation pullback as profit-taking kicks in.

Intraday, the TWST tape shows a steady grind higher rather than a wild spike-and-fade. Price held above $160 for most of the session, with higher lows building from the $158–$160 zone up toward the close near $167. That intraday structure signals persistent demand and dip-buying, not just a one-and-done headline reaction. For day traders, the $160 area stands out as the first key intraday support to watch on any retrace.

Fundamentally, Twist Bioscience posted quarterly revenue of about $118.4M and annual revenue of roughly $376.6M, with a strong gross margin near 52%. But the company is still running at a loss, with an EBIT margin around -31.8% and net income for the latest quarter at roughly -$35.1M, helped by heavy stock-based compensation. Cash burn is improving but still real: free cash flow in the latest quarter was about -$8.6M, while the balance sheet holds solid liquidity with a current ratio around 2.7 and modest debt (total debt-to-equity near 0.21).

Conclusion

This is stock news, not investment advice. Timothy Sykes News delivers real-time stock market news focused on key catalysts driving short-term price movements. Our content is tailored for active traders and investors seeking to capitalize on rapid price fluctuations, particularly in volatile sectors like penny stocks. Readers come to us for detailed coverage on earnings reports, mergers, FDA approvals, new contracts, and unusual trading volumes that can trigger significant short-term price action. Some users utilize our news to explain sudden stock movements, while others rely on it for diligent research into potential investment opportunities.

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A 2000 study called “Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors” evaluated 66,465 U.S. households that held stocks from 1991 to 1996. The households that traded most averaged an 11.4% annual return during a period where the overall market gained 17.9%. These lower returns were attributed to overconfidence.

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Citations for Disclaimer

Barber, Brad M. and Odean, Terrance, Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Available at SSRN: “Day Trading for a Living?”

Barber, Brad M. and Lee, Yi-Tsung and Liu, Yu-Jane and Odean, Terrance and Zhang, Ke, Learning Fast or Slow? (May 28, 2019). Forthcoming: Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=2535636”

Chague, Fernando and De-Losso, Rodrigo and Giovannetti, Bruno, Day Trading for a Living? (June 11, 2020). Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=3423101”