Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) & Sangamo Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SGMO) Critical Review

Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) and Sangamo Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SGMO) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Novavax and Sangamo Therapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Novavax	1	2	3	0	2.33
Sangamo Therapeutics	0	2	4	0	2.67

Novavax currently has a consensus price target of $17.83, indicating a potential upside of 125.17%. Sangamo Therapeutics has a consensus price target of $5.17, indicating a potential upside of 361.31%. Given Sangamo Therapeutics’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Sangamo Therapeutics is more favorable than Novavax.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

53.0% of Novavax shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 56.9% of Sangamo Therapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Novavax shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.8% of Sangamo Therapeutics shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

Novavax has a beta of 2.14, indicating that its stock price is 114% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sangamo Therapeutics has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its stock price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Novavax	$983.71 million	1.29	-$545.06 million	($2.26)	-3.50
Sangamo Therapeutics	$176.23 million	1.33	-$257.83 million	($0.75)	-1.49

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

Profitability

This table compares Novavax and Sangamo Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Novavax	-32.18%	N/A	-17.05%
Sangamo Therapeutics	-257.87%	-264.16%	-107.24%

Summary

Sangamo Therapeutics beats Novavax on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Novavax

Novavax, Inc., a biotechnology company, that promotes improved health by discovering, developing, and commercializing vaccines to protect against serious infectious diseases. It offers vaccine platform that combines a recombinant protein approach, nanoparticle technology, and its patented Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response. It focuses on urgent health challenges, which is evaluating vaccines for COVID-19, influenza, and COVID-19 influenza combination. The company is commercializing a COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373 under the brand names of Nuvaxovid, Covovax, and Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, adjuvanted for adult and adolescent populations as a primary series and for both homologous and heterologous booster indications. It is also developing R21/Matrix-M adjuvant malaria vaccine. Novavax, Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

About Sangamo Therapeutics

Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage genomic medicine company, focuses on translating science into medicines that transform the lives of patients and families afflicted with serious diseases in the United States. The company's clinical-stage product candidates are ST-920, a gene therapy product candidate, which is in Phase 1/2 clinical study for the treatment of Fabry disease; TX200, a chimeric antigen receptor engineered regulatory T cell (CAR-Treg) therapy product candidate that is in Phase 1/2 clinical study for the prevention of immune-mediated rejection in HLA-A2 mismatched kidney transplantation; SB-525, a gene therapy product candidate, which is in Phase 3 clinical trial for the treatment of moderately severe to severe hemophilia A; BIVV003, a zinc finger nuclease gene-edited cell therapy product candidate that is in Phase 1/2 PRECIZN-1 clinical study for the treatment of sickle cell disease. Its preclinical development products focus on CAR-Treg cell therapies for autoimmune disorders and genome engineering for neurological diseases. Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. has collaborative and strategic partnerships with Biogen MA, Inc.; Kite Pharma, Inc.; Pfizer Inc.; Sanofi S.A.; Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc.; Shire International GmbH; Dow AgroSciences LLC; Sigma-Aldrich Corporation; Genentech, Inc.; Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc.; and California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The company was formerly known as Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. and changed its name to Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. in January 2017. Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Richmond, California.