Contrasting Artivion (NYSE:AORT) and Avita Medical (NASDAQ:RCEL)

Avita Medical (NASDAQ:RCEL) and Artivion (NYSE:AORT) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Avita Medical and Artivion’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Avita Medical	-56.96%	N/A	-78.53%
Artivion	-0.67%	6.07%	2.93%

Volatility and Risk

Avita Medical has a beta of 2.03, suggesting that its stock price is 103% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Artivion has a beta of 1.31, suggesting that its stock price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

27.7% of Avita Medical shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.4% of Artivion shares are held by institutional investors. 2.2% of Avita Medical shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.3% of Artivion shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Avita Medical and Artivion”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Avita Medical	$71.61 million	6.74	-$48.59 million	($1.44)	-10.89
Artivion	$471.47 million	2.59	$9.77 million	($0.07)	-357.94

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Avita Medical and Artivion, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Avita Medical	1	1	5	0	2.57
Artivion	1	0	7	0	2.75

Avita Medical currently has a consensus target price of $12.20, indicating a potential downside of 22.19%. Artivion has a consensus target price of $42.86, indicating a potential upside of 71.05%. Given Artivion’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Artivion is more favorable than Avita Medical.

Summary

Artivion beats Avita Medical on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Avita Medical

AVITA Medical, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a regenerative medicine company in the United States and internationally. The company's lead product is the RECELL System, a cell harvesting device used for the treatment of thermal burn wounds, full-thickness skin defects, and repigmentation of stable depigmented vitiligo lesions. It develops RECELL GO to control the manual process of disaggregation, filtration, and soak time. The company was formerly known as AVITA Therapeutics, Inc. AVITA Medical, Inc. was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Valencia, California.

About Artivion

Artivion, Inc. manufactures, processes, and distributes medical devices and implantable human tissues worldwide. The company provides BioGlue, a polymer consisting of bovine blood protein and an agent for cross-linking proteins for cardiac, vascular, neurologic, and pulmonary procedures; cardiac preservation services; PhotoFix, a bovine pericardial patch; and aortic arch stent grafts including E-vita Open Plus and E-vita Open Neo. It offers E-xtra design engineering systems for the treatment of aortic vascular diseases; E-nside, an off-the-shelf stent graft for the treatment of thoraco-abdominal disease; E-vita THORACIC 3G for the endovascular treatment of thoracic aortic aneurysms; E-ventus BX, a balloon-expandable peripheral stent graft for the endovascular treatment of renal and pelvic arteries; E-liac to treat aneurysmal iliac arteries, and aneurysmal iliac side branches; and E-tegra, a stent graft system for the treatment of infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms. In addition, the company offers synthetic vascular grafts for use in open aortic and peripheral vascular surgical procedures; PerClot, an absorbable powdered hemostat for use in surgical procedures; cardiac laser therapy products for angina treatment; CryoVein femoral vein and CryoArtery femoral artery vascular preservation services; On-X prosthetic aortic and mitral heart valves and the On-X ascending aortic prosthesis; CarbonAid CO2 diffusion catheters and Chord-X ePTFE sutures for mitral chordal replacement; and ascyrus medical dissection stents, as well as pyrolytic carbon coating services to medical device manufacturers. It serves physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities, as well as cardiac, vascular, thoracic, and general surgeons. The company was formerly known as CryoLife, Inc. and changed its name to Artivion, Inc. in January 2022. Artivion, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Kennesaw, Georgia.