Twist traded as high as $163.70 on Thursday and finished the session about 9% higher near $156.

  • The stock’s bounce on Thursday followed a pact with Eli Lilly’s Tunelab and a price target hike from Leerink. 
  • Twist sells custom-made DNA to research labs and drugmakers, including genes, DNA fragments, testing kits, and antibody-discovery work.
  • Last month, the company also raised full-year fiscal 2026 sales guidance to $456 million-$457 million and said it still aims to break even on adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter.

Former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, widely known as “Pharma Bro,” called Twist Bioscience (TWST) a short on Thursday even as the stock ripped to a multi-year high during the regular trading session.

“i think $TWST is a short,” Shkreli posted on X, as shares of the synthetic-DNA company surged.

Twist traded as high as $163.70 and finished the session about 9% higher near $156, pushing the company’s market cap over $10 billion.

Why The Stock Jumped

The bounce built on Wednesday’s pact with Eli Lilly’s TuneLab, an AI platform Lilly uses to hunt new medicines. Twist will run lab tests on potential antibody drugs and feed those results into Lilly’s models. In plain terms, Twist is supplying the real-world experiments that help the software pick better candidates.

Leerink then lifted its target to $160 from $120 and kept an Outperform rating. The bank said Twist’s plan to double yearly sales to $1 billion by fiscal 2031 may be too cautious and put the wider AI drug-discovery market at about $7 billion.

What Does Twist Do?

Twist sells custom-made DNA to research labs and drugmakers, including genes, DNA fragments, testing kits, and antibody-discovery work. In the quarter ended June 30, it shipped about 369,000 genes to roughly 2,650 customers and posted record sales of $118.4 million, up more than 23% from a year earlier.

Last month, the company also raised full-year fiscal 2026 sales guidance to $456 million–$457 million and said it still aims to break even on adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter. In May, it expanded its gene catalog to longer, harder-to-make sequences. In August, it sold about $300 million of new stock to fund growth.

How Did TWST Retail Traders React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around TWST jumped from ‘neutral’ to ‘bullish’ over the past 24 hours, while message volume stayed ‘low.’

TWST stock has gained about 390% year-to-date. 

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