Contrasting Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) & Urogen Pharma (NASDAQ:URGN)

Urogen Pharma (NASDAQ:URGN) and Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

91.3% of Urogen Pharma shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 8.7% of Cronos Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.8% of Urogen Pharma shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.8% of Cronos Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Urogen Pharma and Cronos Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Urogen Pharma	1	1	8	0	2.70
Cronos Group	0	2	3	0	2.60

Urogen Pharma presently has a consensus price target of $52.38, suggesting a potential upside of 36.82%. Cronos Group has a consensus price target of $2.30, suggesting a potential downside of 28.35%. Given Urogen Pharma’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Urogen Pharma is more favorable than Cronos Group.

Profitability

This table compares Urogen Pharma and Cronos Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Urogen Pharma	-51.73%	N/A	-43.79%
Cronos Group	39.08%	4.85%	4.62%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Urogen Pharma and Cronos Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Urogen Pharma	$188.73 million	9.91	-$153.49 million	($1.98)	-19.33
Cronos Group	$179.09 million	6.61	-$9.45 million	$0.20	16.05

Cronos Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Urogen Pharma. Urogen Pharma is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cronos Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Urogen Pharma has a beta of 1.57, meaning that its share price is 57% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cronos Group has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

About Urogen Pharma

UroGen Pharma Ltd., a biotechnology company, engages in the development and commercialization of solutions for urothelial and specialty cancers. It offers RTGel, a novel proprietary polymeric biocompatible, reverse thermal gelation hydrogel technology to improve therapeutic profiles of existing drugs; and Jelmyto for pyelocalyceal solution. The company's lead product candidate is UGN-102 for the treatment of several forms of non-muscle invasive urothelial cancer that include low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer and low-grade intermediate risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). It is also developing UGN-301 for the treatment of high-grade NMIBC. The company has license agreement with Agenus Inc. to develop, make, use, sell, import, and commercialize products of Agenus for the treatment of cancers of the urinary tract via intravesical delivery; strategic research collaboration agreement with MD Anderson focusing on the sequential use of UGN-201 and UGN-301 for the treatment of NMIBC; and licensing and supply agreement with medac Gesellschaft für klinische Spezialpräparate m.b.H. to develop UGN-103 in low-grade intermediate risk NMIBC and UGN-104 in low-grade upper tract urothelial carcinoma. UroGen Pharma Ltd. was incorporated in 2004 and is based in Princeton, New Jersey.

About Cronos Group

Cronos Group Inc. operates as a cannabinoid company that engages in the cultivation, production and marketing of cannabis products in Canada, Israel, and Germany. It offers dried flower, pre-rolls, oils, vaporizers, edibles, and cannabis tinctures under the Spinach, Lord Jones, and PEACE NATURALS brands. Cronos Group Inc. was founded in 2012 and is based in Toronto, Canada.