HH&L Acquisition (NYSE:HHLA) & Viridian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VRDN) Critical Review

HH&L Acquisition (NYSE:HHLA – Get Rating) and Viridian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VRDN – Get Rating) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for HH&L Acquisition and Viridian Therapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
HH&L Acquisition	0	0	0	0	N/A
Viridian Therapeutics	0	0	11	0	3.00

Viridian Therapeutics has a consensus price target of $45.08, indicating a potential upside of 89.32%. Given Viridian Therapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Viridian Therapeutics is more favorable than HH&L Acquisition.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares HH&L Acquisition and Viridian Therapeutics’ top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
HH&L Acquisition	N/A	N/A	$17.69 million	$0.19	54.90
Viridian Therapeutics	$1.77 million	580.18	-$129.87 million	($4.66)	-5.11

HH&L Acquisition has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Viridian Therapeutics. Viridian Therapeutics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than HH&L Acquisition, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares HH&L Acquisition and Viridian Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
HH&L Acquisition	N/A	-55.99%	2.76%
Viridian Therapeutics	-10,419.10%	-89.08%	-48.13%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

64.1% of HH&L Acquisition shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of HH&L Acquisition shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.5% of Viridian Therapeutics shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

HH&L Acquisition has a beta of -0.01, suggesting that its stock price is 101% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Viridian Therapeutics has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

HH&L Acquisition beats Viridian Therapeutics on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About HH&L Acquisition

(Get Rating)

HH&L Acquisition Co. does not have significant operations. The company focuses on effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization, or similar business combination with one or more businesses. It intends to focus on healthcare or healthcare-related companies in Asian markets. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is based in Central, Hong Kong.

About Viridian Therapeutics

(Get Rating)

Viridian Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the development of proprietary RNA-targeted therapeutics. Its product candidates include Cobomarsen, which treats patients with certain cancers, including cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, and Remlarsen and MRG-229, which are made for the treatment of patients with pathological fibrosis. The company was founded by William S. Marshall and Bruce L. Booth in February 2006 and is headquartered in Waltham, MA.