NKGen Biotech (NYSE:NKGN) & Humacyte (NASDAQ:HUMA) Critical Analysis

NKGen Biotech (NYSE:NKGN) and Humacyte (NASDAQ:HUMA) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for NKGen Biotech and Humacyte, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NKGen Biotech	0	0	0	0	N/A
Humacyte	0	1	4	0	2.80

Humacyte has a consensus price target of $8.60, suggesting a potential upside of 8.31%. Given Humacyte’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Humacyte is more favorable than NKGen Biotech.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

76.2% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.7% of Humacyte shares are held by institutional investors. 20.0% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 23.1% of Humacyte shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares NKGen Biotech and Humacyte’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
NKGen Biotech	$80,000.00	386.55	-$82.94 million	N/A	N/A
Humacyte	$1.57 million	602.23	-$110.78 million	($1.00)	-7.94

NKGen Biotech has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Humacyte.

Profitability

This table compares NKGen Biotech and Humacyte’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NKGen Biotech	N/A	N/A	-243.41%
Humacyte	N/A	-306.81%	-69.64%

Volatility & Risk

NKGen Biotech has a beta of 0.6, suggesting that its share price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Humacyte has a beta of 1.51, suggesting that its share price is 51% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Humacyte beats NKGen Biotech on 7 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About NKGen Biotech

NKGen Biotech, Inc. operates as a clinical-stage biotechnology company that focuses on the development and commercialization of autologous, allogeneic, and CAR-NK natural killer cell therapies. It develops SNK01, an autologous NK cell therapy; and SNK02, an allogeneic NK cell therapy, which are in Phase 1 clinical trials. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Santa Ana, California.

About Humacyte

Humacyte, Inc. engages in the development and manufacture of off-the-shelf, implantable, and bioengineered human tissues for the treatment of diseases and conditions across a range of anatomic locations in multiple therapeutic areas. The company using its proprietary and scientific technology platform to engineer and manufacture human acellular vessels (HAVs) to be implanted into patient without inducing a foreign body response or leading to immune rejection. It is developing a portfolio of HAVs, which would target the vascular repair, reconstruction, and replacement market, including vascular trauma; arteriovenous access for hemodialysis; peripheral arterial disease; pediatric heart surgery; and coronary artery bypass grafting, as well as for the delivery of cellular therapy, including pancreatic islet cell transplantation to treat Type 1 diabetes. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina.