NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA) & Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) Critical Comparison

NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA) and Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, profitability, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares NuCana and Clearside Biomedical”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
NuCana	N/A	N/A	-$24.28 million	($7.02)	-0.01
Clearside Biomedical	$1.66 million	21.07	-$34.35 million	($0.41)	-1.10

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for NuCana and Clearside Biomedical, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NuCana	0	1	1	0	2.50
Clearside Biomedical	0	5	1	0	2.17

NuCana presently has a consensus price target of $25.00, indicating a potential upside of 53,433.19%. Clearside Biomedical has a consensus price target of $4.20, indicating a potential upside of 833.33%. Given NuCana’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe NuCana is more favorable than Clearside Biomedical.

Profitability

This table compares NuCana and Clearside Biomedical’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NuCana	N/A	-319.85%	-88.55%
Clearside Biomedical	-818.57%	N/A	-114.23%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

44.0% of NuCana shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 18.8% of Clearside Biomedical shares are held by institutional investors. 31.2% of NuCana shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.2% of Clearside Biomedical shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

NuCana has a beta of 1.42, suggesting that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clearside Biomedical has a beta of 2.05, suggesting that its share price is 105% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

NuCana beats Clearside Biomedical on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About NuCana

NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development of medicines to treat patients with cancer. It applies its ProTide technology to transform prescribed chemotherapy agents and nucleoside analogs into medicines. The company, through its technology, is developing ProTides medicines to overcome the limitations of nucleoside analogs and generate much higher concentrations of anti-cancer metabolites in cancer cells. Its pipeline includes NUC-3373, a chemical entity derived from the nucleoside analog 5-fluorouracil that is in Phase 1b/2 study in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, Phase 2 clinical trial for the second-line treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer, and Phase 1b/2 modular clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors and lung cancer. It is also developing NUC-7738, a ProTide transformation of 3'-deoxyadenosine, which is in the Phase 2 part of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors. The company has an assignment, license, and collaboration agreement with Cardiff ProTides Ltd to discover, drug design, and in vitro screen purine and pyrimidine-based nucleosides as potential drug candidates. The company was formerly known as NuCana BioMed Limited and changed its name to NuCana plc in August 2017. NuCana plc was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.

About Clearside Biomedical

Clearside Biomedical, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the revolutionizing the delivery of therapies to the back of the eye through the suprachoroidal space. It offers XIPERE, a triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension for the treatment of uveitis macular edema. It also develops CLS-AX, an axitinib injectable suspension for suprachoroidal injection, which is in Phase IIb clinical trial to treat wet AMD. The company has a collaboration with Bausch Health, Arctic Vision, REGENXBIO, Inc., BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Aura Biosciences. Clearside Biomedical, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.