Twist Bioscience Shares Defy Gravity, Ignoring Scorpion Capital Short Report

Twist Bioscience Corp shares surged sharply on Wednesday after Anthropic named the company an independent evaluation institution for a new AI-driven protein design project.

The bullish momentum overshadowed a scathing short report published by activist short seller Scorpion Capital on platform X, with the stock showing no negative reaction to the tweet. We have reached out to Twist Bioscience for comment on the short seller's allegations but have not received an immediate response.

Here's what investors need to know.

"Speculative Fantasy"

Scorpion Capital's post labeled Twist's AI drug discovery narrative a "speculative fantasy," claiming that recent market enthusiasm over the Anthropic protein design project is entirely misguided.

According to the short seller, Anthropic's research paper only refers to Twist as an "external evaluation institution" and contract research organization for outsourced wet-lab production and testing services, rather than a strategic AI technology partner.

Questioning Analyst Hype

The report criticized Wall Street analysts at TD Cowen and Piper Sandler for hyping the arrangement as a significant milestone.

Scorpion noted that Twist filed a reactive 8-K under Item 7.01 rather than Item 1.01, arguing this clearly indicates the project lacks sufficient financial materiality.

"Inflationary Pressure" Threat?

Additionally, Scorpion argued that Anthropic's research findings are structurally disadvantageous to Twist. Anthropic reported that its Claude-designed proteins achieved a 22% to 35% target binding success rate, significantly exceeding the typical 10% to 15% benchmark.

Scorpion contends this accuracy improvement exerts inflationary pressure, as scientists would only need to order roughly half the physical constructs per successful binding event.

Scorpion Capital explicitly disclosed a short position in TWST stock on Wednesday afternoon.

TWST Shares Surge Sharply on Wednesday

TWST Price Action: Twist Bioscience shares closed up 22.64% on Wednesday at $142.39. The stock is trading at a new 52-week high.