Arvinas (NASDAQ:ARVN) versus Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) Critical Comparison

Arvinas (NASDAQ:ARVN) and Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

95.2% of Arvinas shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.7% of Geron shares are held by institutional investors. 7.3% of Arvinas shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Geron shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Arvinas and Geron, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Arvinas	1	2	5	1	2.67
Geron	1	2	2	0	2.20

Arvinas presently has a consensus price target of $15.40, suggesting a potential upside of 110.96%. Geron has a consensus price target of $4.00, suggesting a potential upside of 257.14%. Given Geron’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Geron is more favorable than Arvinas.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Arvinas and Geron”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Arvinas	$262.60 million	1.79	-$80.80 million	$0.10	73.00
Geron	$183.88 million	3.91	-$83.50 million	($0.11)	-10.18

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

Volatility and Risk

Arvinas has a beta of 1.8, indicating that its share price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Geron has a beta of 0.61, indicating that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Arvinas and Geron’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Arvinas	2.94%	1.91%	1.29%
Geron	-34.17%	-24.48%	-10.30%

Summary

Arvinas beats Geron on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Arvinas

Arvinas, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies to degrade disease-causing proteins. The company engineers proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTAC) targeted protein degraders that are designed to harness the body’s own natural protein disposal system to degrade and remove disease-causing proteins. Its product pipeline includes Bavdegalutamide and ARV-766, investigational orally bioavailable PROTAC protein degraders for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which are in Phase 1/2 clinical trials; and ARV-471, an orally bioavailable estrogen receptor degrading PROTAC targeted protein degrader for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic estrogen receptor+/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-breast cancer, which is Phase 3 clinical trial. Arvinas, Inc. has collaborations with Pfizer Inc., Genentech, Inc., F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Carrick Therapeutics Limited, and Bayer AG. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in New Haven, Connecticut.

About Geron

Geron Corporation, a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapeutics for myeloid hematologic malignancies. It develops imetelstat, a telomerase inhibitor that is in Phase 3 clinical trials, which inhibits the uncontrolled proliferation of malignant stem and progenitor cells in myeloid hematologic malignancies for the treatment of low or intermediate-1 risk myelodysplastic syndromes and intermediate-2 or high-risk myelofibrosis. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.