Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) versus Telesis Bio (NASDAQ:TBIO) Critical Review

Telesis Bio (NASDAQ:TBIO) and Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation, risk and analyst recommendations.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

37.6% of Telesis Bio shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.9% of Personalis shares are held by institutional investors. 24.5% of Telesis Bio shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Personalis shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Telesis Bio and Personalis”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Telesis Bio	$225.09 million	0.00	-$47.72 million	($20.52)	-0.00
Personalis	$69.65 million	25.26	-$81.27 million	($1.09)	-15.41

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Telesis Bio and Personalis, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Telesis Bio	0	0	0	0	0.00
Personalis	2	4	4	0	2.20

Personalis has a consensus target price of $14.54, suggesting a potential downside of 13.48%. Given Personalis’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Personalis is more favorable than Telesis Bio.

Risk & Volatility

Telesis Bio has a beta of 2.45, meaning that its share price is 145% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Personalis has a beta of 2.27, meaning that its share price is 127% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Telesis Bio and Personalis’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Telesis Bio	-336.59%	N/A	-61.89%
Personalis	-153.84%	-46.47%	-35.30%

Summary

Personalis beats Telesis Bio on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Telesis Bio

Telesis Bio, Inc., a synthetic biology company, manufactures and sells synthetic biology instruments, reagents, and associated products and related services, primarily to pharmaceutical and academic laboratories worldwide. The company offers BioXp 3250 system and BioXp 9600 system that empower researchers to go from a digital DNA sequence to endpoint-ready synthetic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) with onboard next generation sequencing (NGS) library preparation; BioXp portal, an online portal that offers an intuitive guided workflow and design tools for building new DNA sequences and assembling them into vectors of choice, as well as mRNA constructs; and BioXp De Novo kits, which contains building blocks and reagents, including proprietary Gibson assembly branded reagents for specific synthetic biology workflow applications. It also provides BioXp Select kits that offers to use non-telesis bio DNA while using the BioXp system to perform synthetic biology workflow applications, such as cloning, mRNA generation from plasmid, and cell free amplification; BioXp Next Generation Sequencing kits, which contains reagents to go from DNA or RNA to a sequencer-ready library; Benchtop reagents that contains the reagents to proceed specific synthetic biology workflow on the benchtop using products generated on the BioXp system; and custom Gibson short oligo ligation assembly enzymatic DNA synthesis solutions, which is designed to construct synthetic DNA, RNA, and proteins for development of mRNA-based vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and personalized medicines. The company serves its products to government institutions, contract research organizations, and synthetic biology companies. The company was formerly known as Codex DNA, Inc. and changed its name to Telesis Bio Inc. in November 2022. Telesis Bio, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

About Personalis

Personalis, Inc. develops and markets advanced cancer genomic tests and analytics primarily in the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. Its tests and analytics are used by pharmaceutical companies for translational research, biomarker discovery, and development of personalized cancer therapies, as well as advanced tests are used by physicians to detect cancer recurrence, monitor cancer evolution, and uncover insights for therapy selection. The company offers NeXT Personal, a tumor-informed liquid biopsy test for detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) and recurrence in cancer; and ImmunoID NeXT, a tissue-based test that combines whole exome (DNA) and whole transcriptome (RNA) sequencing data with advanced analytics to provide a multi-dimensional view of the tumor and the tumor microenvironment from a single sample. It also provides NeXT Personal Dx, a tumor-informed liquid biopsy test for detection of MRD and recurrence in cancer; and NeXT Dx, a comprehensive tumor profiling test that unlocks the entire exome (DNA) and transcriptome (RNA) with matched tumor-normal analysis. In addition, the company performs whole exome sequencing (WES) of cancer tissue and matched blood samples for diagnostic companies as an input to their products; and whole genome sequencing (WGS) on human samples for research projects, such as population sequencing initiatives, as well as offers sequencing and data analysis services to support population sequencing initiatives. Its customers include pharmaceutical companies, biopharmaceutical companies, diagnostics companies, universities, non-profits, government entities, and patients. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.