What's Signal vs Noise? Our Preliminary Thoughts on Today's Short Report

Research evidence excerpt

What's Signal vs Noise? Our Preliminary Thoughts on Today's Short Report

USA | Specialty Pharmaceuticals

Tarsus EquityJulyResearch1, 2026

COMPANY UPDATEWhat's Signal vs Noise? Our Preliminary

RATING BUYThoughts on Today's Short Report

PRICE $62.94^

A short report was published today alleging TARS is violating anti-kickback laws.

We acknowledge we don’t have full visibility on interactions with the charity and PRICE TARGET | % TO PT $88.00 | +40%

specialty pharmacies but our preliminary view is the large proportion of funds 52W HIGH-LOW $85.25 - $38.51

geared towards Xdemvy is price driven due to much better SOC and not through FLOAT (%) | ADV MM (USD) 94.4% | 46.20

direct manipulation by TARS. Also, the cited AKS case studies don’t seem that MARKET CAP $2.7B

relevant. We deconstruct the short report inside w/ better context. TICKER TARS ^Prior trading day's closing price unless otherwise

noted.

What happened? TARS has traded down in response to a Culper short report alleging (1) TARS is

"directly" buying down Medicare copay via donations to a blepharitis fund as the overwhelming /

FY (Dec) CHANGE TO JEFe JEF vs CONS

sole donor and that the vast majority of the blepharitis fund's grant flows to Xdemvy patients, (2)

2026 2027 2026 2027

TARS is directly scripts to BlinkRx which unnecessarily pushes Xdemvy refills, particularly if they

are billed to Medicare as it could raise an FCA medical necessity concern, (3) TARS will not reach its REV NA NA +1% -6%

$2B peak sales estimate, and (4) profitability will be delayed due to high SG&A spend. We've reach EPS NA NA -27% -4%

out to TARS mgmt and haven't heard back - they are likely working on a formal response to the short

report, but our thoughts below. 2026 ($) Q1A Q2 Q3 Q4 FY

EPS (0.16) (0.28) (0.23) 0.14 (0.52)