Head-To-Head Contrast: Cartesian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:RNAC) versus Maze Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MAZE)

Maze Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MAZE) and Cartesian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:RNAC) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and risk.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

86.9% of Cartesian Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. 60.3% of Cartesian Therapeutics shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Maze Therapeutics and Cartesian Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Maze Therapeutics	N/A	N/A	N/A
Cartesian Therapeutics	N/A	N/A	-6.36%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Maze Therapeutics and Cartesian Therapeutics”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Maze Therapeutics	$167.50 million	6.15	$52.23 million	N/A	N/A
Cartesian Therapeutics	$1.03 million	261.29	-$77.42 million	($52.83)	-0.20

Maze Therapeutics has higher revenue and earnings than Cartesian Therapeutics.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Maze Therapeutics and Cartesian Therapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Maze Therapeutics	0	0	6	2	3.25
Cartesian Therapeutics	0	1	4	0	2.80

Maze Therapeutics currently has a consensus target price of $32.67, indicating a potential upside of 39.13%. Cartesian Therapeutics has a consensus target price of $40.00, indicating a potential upside of 287.97%. Given Cartesian Therapeutics’ higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Cartesian Therapeutics is more favorable than Maze Therapeutics.

Summary

Maze Therapeutics beats Cartesian Therapeutics on 6 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Maze Therapeutics

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company harnessing the power of human genetics to develop novel, small molecule precision medicines for patients living with renal, cardiovascular and related metabolic diseases, including obesity. We are advancing a pipeline using our Compass platform, which allows us to identify and characterize genetic variants in disease and then link those variants to the biological pathways that drive disease in specific patient groups through a process we refer to as variant functionalization. Our Compass platform has been purpose-built to inform all phases of our drug discovery and development process through clinical trial design. We are currently advancing two wholly owned lead programs, MZE829 and MZE782, each of which represents a novel precision medicine-based approach for chronic kidney disease, or CKD. Our goal is to bring novel precision medicines to patients to maximize our impact on human health. CKD is a serious, progressive condition that affects approximately 37 million patients in the United States, where it is expected to be the fifth most prevalent chronic disease by 2040. Current treatments for CKD consider patients as falling into clinical categories and focus on slowing the progression of disease, but do not target the underlying genetic drivers of disease. Our lead programs are designed to phenocopy, or mimic, the protective effects of certain genetic variants that are associated with reduced disease burden and improved kidney function in distinct groups of CKD patients. Our most advanced lead program, MZE829, is an oral, small molecule inhibitor of apolipoprotein L1, or APOL1, for the treatment of patients with APOL1 kidney disease, or AKD, which is estimated to affect over one million patients in the United States alone. Although the link between APOL1 variants and renal dysfunction has been known for over a decade, we have identified a new protective variant that underpins our therapeutic approach for MZE829 and may ultimately allow us to address a broader population of AKD than has previously been possible in the clinical setting. In October 2024, we reported results for our Phase 1 clinical trial of MZE829, in which we enrolled 111 healthy patients who received either single or multiple ascending doses of 20 mg to 480 mg of MZE829 administered daily. Treatment was well tolerated with no severe adverse events or serious adverse events reported in patients treated with single doses up to 480 mg and multiple doses of up to 350 mg daily for seven days. Dose-proportional pharmacokinetics, or PK, was observed with low variability (10-40%) across doses. We initiated a Phase 2 trial of MZE829 in November 2024 and expect to dose our first patient in the first quarter of 2025 and to report proof of concept data in the first quarter of 2026. Our second lead program, MZE782, is an oral, small molecule inhibitor of the solute transporter SLC6A19, a novel CKD target, with the potential to address approximately five million of the CKD patients in the United States with inadequate responses to currently available CKD therapies. Beyond its use as a potential standalone therapy, MZE782 may also provide a significant benefit to patients in combination with standard of care, including as a complementary treatment to current approved regimens or as an alternative option for those patients who do not adequately respond to today’s standard of care. We initiated a Phase 1 trial of MZE782 in September 2024 and expect to report initial data from this trial in the second half of 2025. In addition to CKD, we believe MZE782 may provide benefit to patients suffering from the genetically defined metabolic disease, phenylketonuria, or PKU. Following our ongoing Phase 1 trial of MZE782, we plan to conduct a parallel Phase 2 clinical trial to explore MZE782 as a potential treatment of PKU. Our Compass platform supports end-to-end variant identification and functionalization capabilities as well as advanced research tools and methodologies for drug development. We believe the process of variant functionalization, or understanding how genetic variants function to affect the course of disease, is a foundational aspect of precision medicine and one of the core capabilities that sets us apart from others in the field. We were incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware on August 29, 2017, originally under the name Genetic Modifiers NewCo, Inc. We changed our name on July 5, 2018 to Modulus Therapeutics, Inc. and on September 25, 2018, to Maze Therapeutics, Inc. Our principal executive offices are located at 171 Oyster Point Blvd., Suite 300, South San Francisco, California.

About Cartesian Therapeutics

Cartesian Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, engages in the provision of mRNA cell therapies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. It develops Descartes-08, an autologous anti-BCMA RNA-engineered chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, currently under Phase 2b clinical development for generalized myasthenia gravis, as well as for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and myeloma autoimmune basket trials for other autoimmune diseases. The company develops Descartes-15 to treat Autoimmune diseases, myeloma; and Descartes-33 which is in preclinical development for treatment of autoimmune diseases. Cartesian Therapeutics, Inc. is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.