Reviewing Athira Pharma (NASDAQ:LONA) and Prime Medicine (NASDAQ:PRME)

Athira Pharma (NASDAQ:LONA) and Prime Medicine (NASDAQ:PRME) are both small-cap manufacturing companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Athira Pharma and Prime Medicine”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Athira Pharma	N/A	N/A	-$96.94 million	($9.68)	-0.57
Prime Medicine	$2.98 million	198.08	-$195.88 million	($1.44)	-2.27

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

Risk and Volatility

Athira Pharma has a beta of 2.72, suggesting that its stock price is 172% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Prime Medicine has a beta of 2.7, suggesting that its stock price is 170% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Athira Pharma and Prime Medicine, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Athira Pharma	1	0	1	0	2.00
Prime Medicine	1	0	0	1	2.50

Athira Pharma currently has a consensus price target of $10.00, indicating a potential upside of 79.86%. Given Athira Pharma’s higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Athira Pharma is more favorable than Prime Medicine.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

57.1% of Athira Pharma shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.4% of Prime Medicine shares are held by institutional investors. 19.8% of Athira Pharma shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 22.7% of Prime Medicine shares are held by 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.

Profitability

This table compares Athira Pharma and Prime Medicine’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Athira Pharma	N/A	-107.06%	-89.89%
Prime Medicine	-3,301.64%	-163.51%	-61.21%

Summary

Prime Medicine beats Athira Pharma on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Athira Pharma

Athira Pharma, Inc., a late clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing small molecules to restore neuronal health and slow neurodegradation. The company’s lead product candidate is ATH-1017, a blood brain barrier-penetrating, small molecule HGF/MET positive modulator that is in LIFT-AD Phase 3 and ACT-AD Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as is in Phase 2 clinical trials to treat Parkinson’s disease. It also develops product candidates, which are in preclinical stage, including ATH-1019 for peripheral nervous system indications; and ATH-1020 for neuropsychiatric conditions. Athira Pharma, Inc. was formerly known as M3 Biotechnology, Inc. and changed its name to Athira Pharma, Inc. in April 2019. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Bothell, Washington.

About Prime Medicine

We are a biotechnology company committed to delivering a new class of differentiated one-time curative genetic therapies, Prime Editors, to address the widest spectrum of diseases by deploying our Prime Editing technology, which we believe is a versatile, precise, efficient and broad gene editing technology. Genetic mutations implicated in disease are diverse and can range from errors of a single base, known as point mutations, to errors that extend beyond a single base, such as insertions, deletions, duplications, or combinations thereof. We believe the ability to alter the human genome at the foundational level may confer the greatest therapeutic impact on human disease. Gene editing, including platforms such as Prime Editing, is a novel technology that is not yet clinically validated for human therapeutic use. Over the last decade, the field of genetic medicine has evolved tremendously, with groundbreaking advances in gene therapy, cell therapy, RNA therapy, and, more recently, gene editing. These technologies represent dramatic advancements for genetic therapies, but lack the versatility to precisely and efficiently correct the diverse range of mutations or DNA alterations implicated in disease. Prime Medicine was co-founded by a world-renowned leader in the field of gene editing, David Liu, Ph.D. Dr. Liu was joined as co-founder by Andrew Anzalone, M.D., Ph.D., who conceived of and developed Prime Editing technology. Drawn by the promise of Prime Editing’s ability to transform the field of gene editing, we have assembled a diverse team that has grown to more than 150 people as of September 30, 2022. There are no current plans for Dr. Liu to be an officer or director of our company following this offering. He is expected to continue to provide consulting services to us pursuant to a consulting agreement, which has a current term that runs through September 2025 and accommodates a previous commitment with respect to Beam Therapeutics Inc., which could result in or may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. He is also expected to retain his position and affiliation with the Broad Institute, Inc., Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard University. On September 20, 2022, we achieved a major milestone as the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or the USPTO, issued U.S. Patent 11,447,770, or the ‘770 Patent, covering methods of using Prime Editors. The Broad Institute, Inc., or Broad Institute, prepared, filed and prosecuted the ‘770 Patent. While Broad Institute is the owner of the ‘770 Patent, it is exclusively licensed to us under the terms of the license agreement with Broad Institute. The ‘770 Patent is the first issued Prime Editing patent in our licensed patent portfolio and we believe it will be instrumental in protecting our Prime Editing platform and pipeline of gene editing programs. We believe our in-licensed and company-owned Prime Editing technology has transformative potential that could change the course of how disease is treated and overcome the challenges associated with current genetic therapies. We in-license our Prime Editing technology pursuant to a license agreement with Broad Institute. In addition, the license agreement grants us certain rights and licenses under certain patent rights Broad Institute owns or controls, including a license to the ‘770 Patent, which covers Prime Editing technology and expires in 2040. The licenses are limited to the field of prevention or treatment of human disease, and most licenses granted to us under the license agreement are further limited to the prevention or treatment of human disease by editing (including modifying or converting) or targeting DNA ex vivo, in vivo, or through xeno transplantation methods, which we refer to as the Prime Broad Field. We were incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware in September 2019 under the name Prime Medicine, Inc. Our principal executive offices are located at 21 Erie Street, Cambridge, MA.