Contrasting BioXcel Therapeutics (NASDAQ:BTAI) and Nuvalent (NASDAQ:NUVL)

BioXcel Therapeutics (NASDAQ:BTAI – Get Rating) and Nuvalent (NASDAQ:NUVL – Get Rating) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for BioXcel Therapeutics and Nuvalent, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BioXcel Therapeutics	0	2	6	0	2.75
Nuvalent	0	0	2	0	3.00

BioXcel Therapeutics presently has a consensus target price of $54.78, suggesting a potential upside of 165.14%. Nuvalent has a consensus target price of $44.50, suggesting a potential upside of 67.92%. Given BioXcel Therapeutics’ higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe BioXcel Therapeutics is more favorable than Nuvalent.

Profitability

This table compares BioXcel Therapeutics and Nuvalent’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BioXcel Therapeutics	N/A	-102.47%	-70.62%
Nuvalent	N/A	-27.99%	-26.96%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

42.4% of BioXcel Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. 37.0% of BioXcel Therapeutics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 15.8% of Nuvalent shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BioXcel Therapeutics and Nuvalent’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BioXcel Therapeutics	$380,000.00	1,523.40	-$106.93 million	($5.91)	-3.50
Nuvalent	N/A	N/A	-$46.34 million	($1.51)	-17.55

Nuvalent has lower revenue, but higher earnings than BioXcel Therapeutics. Nuvalent is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BioXcel Therapeutics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

BioXcel Therapeutics has a beta of 1.21, indicating that its share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nuvalent has a beta of 1.53, indicating that its share price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500.

About BioXcel Therapeutics

(Get Rating)

BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc. is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, which engages in utilizing artificial intelligence approaches to develop medicines in neuroscience and immuno-oncology. The firm offers IGALMI, a proprietary, sublingual film formulation of dexmedetomidine for the acute treatment of agitation associated with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in adults. It also develops BXCL701, an investigational, orally administered, systemic innate immunity activator for the treatment of prostate cancer and solid tumors that are refractory to checkpoint inhibitors. The company was founded by Vimal D. Mehta on March 29, 2017 and is headquartered in New Haven, CT.

About Nuvalent

(Get Rating)

Nuvalent, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, develops therapies for patients with cancer. Its lead product candidates are NVL-520, a brain-penetrant ROS1-selective inhibitor to inhibit ROS1 fusions that express the normal ROS1 kinase domain without any drug-resistant mutations and remain active in the presence of mutations conferring resistance to approved and investigational ROS1 inhibitors, which is under Phase I development; and NVL-655, a brain-penetrant ALK-selective inhibitor, to address the clinical challenges of emergent treatment resistance, central nervous system-related adverse events, and brain metastases that might limit the use of first-, second-, and third-generation ALK inhibitors that is under Phase I/II clinical trial. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.