In the first six months of this year, the company paid $54 million for discovery-stage R&D and $79 million for clinical-stage R&D. Spending on those individual categories match or exceed the company's entire R&D budget from fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019, respectively.

Total R&D cash expenses grew from $46 million in 2018 to $308 million in 2023. While all categories grew in that span, discovery-stage R&D has represented at least 24% of total R&D cash expenses for five consecutive quarters. That level has only been met in two other quarters since the beginning of 2018.

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Meanwhile, total compensation per employee rose more than 58% from 2018 to 2023. That has compounded with a 352% jump in headcount in that span.

Wall Street analysts are frustrated management has bucked the industry trend by deciding against layoffs (so far), choosing to instead cut costs by nixing early-stage assets while continuing investments in its people. I think in many cases layoffs are a sign of poor management, so we'll see who blinks first.