Critical Analysis: Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) and PepGen (NASDAQ:PEPG)

Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) and PepGen (NASDAQ:PEPG) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

88.8% of Intellia Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.0% of PepGen shares are held by institutional investors. 3.1% of Intellia Therapeutics shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.6% of PepGen shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Intellia Therapeutics and PepGen’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intellia Therapeutics	-609.85%	-56.81%	-45.34%
PepGen	N/A	-75.73%	-60.42%

Risk & Volatility

Intellia Therapeutics has a beta of 1.99, indicating that its share price is 99% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PepGen has a beta of 2.34, indicating that its share price is 134% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Intellia Therapeutics and PepGen, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intellia Therapeutics	2	8	9	1	2.45
PepGen	1	0	5	0	2.67

Intellia Therapeutics presently has a consensus price target of $19.59, indicating a potential upside of 31.04%. PepGen has a consensus price target of $11.80, indicating a potential upside of 594.12%. Given PepGen’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe PepGen is more favorable than Intellia Therapeutics.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Intellia Therapeutics and PepGen”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intellia Therapeutics	$67.67 million	26.10	-$412.69 million	($3.83)	-3.90
PepGen	N/A	N/A	-$89.65 million	($2.41)	-0.71

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

Summary

PepGen beats Intellia Therapeutics on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Intellia Therapeutics

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc., a genome editing company, focuses on the development of curative therapeutics. The company's in vivo programs include NTLA-2001, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; NTLA-2002 for the treatment of hereditary angioedema; and NTLA-3001 for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency associated lung disease. It also focusses on programs comprising hemophilia A and hemophilia B; and research of proprietary programs focused on developing engineered cell therapies to treat various cancers and autoimmune diseases. In addition, the company offers tools comprising of Clustered, Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system. It has license and collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to co-develop potential products for the treatment of hemophilia A and hemophilia B; AvenCell Therapeutics, Inc. to develop allogeneic universal CAR-T cell therapies, and co-develop and co-commercialize allogeneic universal CAR-T cell products for an immuno-oncology indication; SparingVision SAS to develop novel genomic medicines utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 technology for the treatment of ocular diseases; Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc. for the development of an allogeneic CD19 CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of a variety of B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases; and ONK Therapeutics, Ltd. for the development of engineered NK cell therapies to cure patients with cancer. Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About PepGen

PepGen Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, focuses on the development of oligonucleotide therapeutics for use in the treatment of severe neuromuscular and neurologic diseases. Its lead product candidate is PGN-EDO51, an EDO peptide that is in Phase 2 clinical trial to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients. The company is also developing PGN-EDODM1, an EDO peptide-conjugated PMO, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of myotonic dystrophy type 1, as well as EDO therapeutic candidates, such as PGN-EDO53, PGN-EDO45, and PGN-EDO44 for the treatment of DMD. PepGen Inc. was founded in 2018 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.