Financial Contrast: Vericel (NASDAQ:VCEL) and Senti Biosciences (NASDAQ:SNTI)

Vericel (NASDAQ:VCEL) and Senti Biosciences (NASDAQ:SNTI) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, risk and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Vericel and Senti Biosciences, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Vericel	0	0	7	0	3.00
Senti Biosciences	0	0	0	0	0.00

Vericel presently has a consensus target price of $57.71, suggesting a potential upside of 4.05%. Given Vericel’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Vericel is more favorable than Senti Biosciences.

Volatility and Risk

Vericel has a beta of 1.66, indicating that its share price is 66% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Senti Biosciences has a beta of 2.74, indicating that its share price is 174% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Vericel and Senti Biosciences”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Vericel	$197.52 million	13.86	-$3.18 million	$0.06	924.65
Senti Biosciences	$2.56 million	4.03	-$71.06 million	($12.65)	-0.18

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

25.7% of Senti Biosciences shares are held by institutional investors. 5.2% of Vericel shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 15.9% of Senti Biosciences shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Vericel and Senti Biosciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Vericel	1.56%	1.48%	0.96%
Senti Biosciences	N/A	-84.70%	-48.10%

Summary

Vericel beats Senti Biosciences on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Vericel

Vericel Corporation, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the research, development, manufacture, and distribution of cellular therapies for sports medicine and severe burn care markets in North America. The company markets autologous cell therapy products comprising MACI, an autologous cultured chondrocytes on porcine collagen membrane for the repair of symptomatic, and single or multiple full-thickness cartilage defects of the knee; Epicel, a permanent skin replacement humanitarian use device for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with deep-dermal or full-thickness burns; and NexoBrid, a biological orphan product for eschar removal in adults with deep partial-thickness and/or full-thickness thermal burns. The company was formerly known as Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. Vericel Corporation was incorporated in 1989 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About Senti Biosciences

Senti Biosciences, Inc. operates as a preclinical biotechnology company that develops next-generation cell and gene therapies engineered with its gene circuit platform technologies for various diseases. Its lead product candidates utilize allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor natural killer (CAR-NK) cells outfitted with its gene circuit technologies in various oncology indications. The company product candidates include SENTI-202, a Logic Gated OR+NOT off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell therapy designed to target and eliminate cancer cells while sparing the healthy bone marrow; and SENTI-301A for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. It also develops SENTI-401, a Logic Gated off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell therapy designed to target and eliminate colorectal cancer/CRC cells. In addition, the company develops Tumor-Associated Antigen and Protective Antigen Paired Discovery Platform to select and validate NOT GATE antigen candidates and identify tumor-associated antigens in cancer cells. The company has a strategic collaboration with Celest Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd for the clinical development of SENTI-301A to treat solid tumors. Senti Biosciences, Inc. was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.