Critical Review: Lipocine (NASDAQ:LPCN) & Lyell Immunopharma (NASDAQ:LYEL)

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Lyell Immunopharma and Lipocine, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lyell Immunopharma	1	0	1	0	2.00
Lipocine	1	0	1	1	2.67

Lyell Immunopharma currently has a consensus price target of $45.00, suggesting a potential upside of 14.94%. Lipocine has a consensus price target of $7.00, suggesting a potential upside of 47.06%. Given Lipocine’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Lipocine is more favorable than Lyell Immunopharma.

Profitability

This table compares Lyell Immunopharma and Lipocine’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lyell Immunopharma	-794,292.69%	-96.68%	-76.00%
Lipocine	-126.67%	-30.65%	-28.20%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

66.1% of Lyell Immunopharma shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.1% of Lipocine shares are held by institutional investors. 22.3% of Lyell Immunopharma shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.4% of Lipocine shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Lyell Immunopharma and Lipocine”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lyell Immunopharma	$60,000.00	13,859.10	-$342.99 million	($23.02)	-1.70
Lipocine	$11.20 million	2.36	$10,000.00	($1.02)	-4.67

Lipocine has higher revenue and earnings than Lyell Immunopharma. Lipocine is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Lyell Immunopharma, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Lyell Immunopharma has a beta of -0.11, meaning that its stock price is 111% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lipocine has a beta of 1.03, meaning that its stock price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Lipocine beats Lyell Immunopharma on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lyell Immunopharma

Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., a clinical-stage cell therapy company, develops T cell reprogramming technologies for patients with solid tumors. The company develops therapies using an ex vivo genetic reprogramming technologies, such as c Jun overexpression and NR4A3 gene knockout, to endow resistance to T cell exhaustion; and an ex vivo epigenetic reprogramming technologies, including Epi R to generate population of T cells with durable stemness, and Stim R, a proprietary synthetic cell mimetic. It is also developing LYL797, a genetically and epigenetically reprogrammed ROR1 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell product candidate that is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of various solid tumors; and LYL845, a novel epigenetically reprogrammed tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes product candidate, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial targeting multiple solid tumor indications. In addition, the company's preclinical product candidates include LYL119, a ROR1 CAR T-cell product for the treatment of enhanced cytotoxicity; and second generation TIL product. Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.

About Lipocine

Lipocine Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the research and development for the delivery of drugs for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Its lead product candidate is TLANDO, an oral testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) comprising testosterone undecanoate. The company's pipeline candidates also include TLANDO XR a candidate for oral TRT for once daily dosing, which has completed Phase 2b clinical study; LPCN 1148, an oral prodrug of bioidentical testosterone, being developed for the treatment of cirrhosis, currently under Phase 2 clinical studies; LPCN 1154, An oral neurosteroid, being developed for the treatment of postpartum depression, currently under Phase 2 studies; LPCN 2101, a NAS candidate, for women with epilepsy; and LPCN 2203 for essential tremor. It is also involved in the development of LPCN 1144, an oral prodrug of bioidentical testosterone for the treatment of pre-cirrhotic non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, which has completed Phase 2 testing; and LPCN 1107, an oral product candidate of 17-alpha-hydroxy progesterone caproate product, currently under Phase 3 studies for the prevention of recurrent preterm birth. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.