Financial Review: Aligos Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ALGS) and Artiva Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:ARTV)

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Aligos Therapeutics and Artiva Biotherapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Aligos Therapeutics	0	0	1	0	3.00
Artiva Biotherapeutics	0	0	6	0	3.00

Aligos Therapeutics currently has a consensus price target of $75.00, indicating a potential upside of 122.49%. Artiva Biotherapeutics has a consensus price target of $21.00, indicating a potential upside of 124.60%. Given Artiva Biotherapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Artiva Biotherapeutics is more favorable than Aligos Therapeutics.

Profitability

This table compares Aligos Therapeutics and Artiva Biotherapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Aligos Therapeutics	-1,283.19%	-114.34%	-64.58%
Artiva Biotherapeutics	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional & Insider Ownership

60.4% of Aligos Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. 8.8% of Aligos Therapeutics shares are held by company 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.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Aligos Therapeutics and Artiva Biotherapeutics”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Aligos Therapeutics	$6.00 million	20.17	-$87.68 million	($13.32)	-2.53
Artiva Biotherapeutics	$2.60 million	87.31	N/A	N/A	N/A

Artiva Biotherapeutics has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Aligos Therapeutics.

Summary

Artiva Biotherapeutics beats Aligos Therapeutics on 6 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Aligos Therapeutics

Aligos Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs in viral and liver diseases. Its drug candidate, ALG-055009, a small molecule THR-ß agonist that is in the Phase 2a clinical trial for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The company also develops ALG-000184, a capsid assembly modulator, which is completed Phase 1b clinical trial to treat chronic hepatitis B (CHB); and ALG-125755, a siRNA drug candidate, which is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of CHB. In addition, it develops ALG-097558, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of coronavirus. The company has entered into license and research collaboration agreement with Merck to discover, research, optimize, and develop oligonucleotides directed against a NASH; license agreement with Emory University to provide hepatitis B virus capsid assembly modulator technology; license agreement with Luxna Biotech Co., Ltd. to develop and commercialize products containing oligonucleotides targeting hepatitis B virus genome; and research, licensing, and commercialization agreement with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven to develop coronavirus protease inhibitors. Aligos Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.

About Artiva Biotherapeutics

Artiva Biotherapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, focuses on developing natural killer (NK) cell-based therapies for patients suffering from autoimmune diseases and cancers. The company’s lead product candidate is AB-101, an off-the-shelf NK cell therapy for patients with autoimmune diseases and cancers, such as lupus nephritis, rheumatoid arthritis, pemphigus vulgaris, the anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis subtypes granulomatosis with polyangiitis/microscopic polyangiitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and B-cell-non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It also develops AB-201, an allogeneic anti- human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-NK cell product candidate; and AB-205, an allogeneic anti-CD5 CAR-NK cell product candidate. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.