Financial Analysis: Arvinas (NASDAQ:ARVN) & Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN)

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) and Arvinas (NASDAQ:ARVN) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings and risk.

Volatility and Risk

Valneva has a beta of 1.53, suggesting that its stock price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Arvinas has a beta of 1.8, suggesting that its stock price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Valneva and Arvinas’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Valneva	-110.33%	-153.20%	-39.50%
Arvinas	2.94%	1.91%	1.29%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

11.4% of Valneva shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.2% of Arvinas shares are held by institutional investors. 14.9% of Valneva shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.3% of Arvinas shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Valneva and Arvinas”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Valneva	$197.56 million	2.69	-$130.33 million	($2.11)	-2.66
Arvinas	$316.70 million	1.55	-$80.80 million	$0.10	75.95

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Valneva and Arvinas, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Valneva	2	0	1	0	1.67
Arvinas	1	2	5	1	2.67

Valneva presently has a consensus price target of $9.30, suggesting a potential upside of 65.78%. Arvinas has a consensus price target of $15.40, suggesting a potential upside of 102.76%. Given Arvinas’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Arvinas is more favorable than Valneva.

Summary

Arvinas beats Valneva on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine. The company also develops VLA15, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against Borrelia, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease; VLA1553, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against the chikungunya virus; VLA1554, a vaccine candidate targeting human metapneumovirus; and VLA2112, a vaccine candidate to treat patients with epstein-barr virus. It sells its products in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Nordics, the United Kingdom, France, rest of European countries, and internationally. Valneva SE has collaborations with Pfizer, Inc. to co-develop and commercialize its Lyme disease vaccine; and Instituto Butantan for the development, manufacturing, and marketing of single-shot chikungunya vaccine. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in Saint-Herblain, France.

About Arvinas

Arvinas, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies to degrade disease-causing proteins. The company engineers proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTAC) targeted protein degraders that are designed to harness the body’s own natural protein disposal system to degrade and remove disease-causing proteins. Its product pipeline includes Bavdegalutamide and ARV-766, investigational orally bioavailable PROTAC protein degraders for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which are in Phase 1/2 clinical trials; and ARV-471, an orally bioavailable estrogen receptor degrading PROTAC targeted protein degrader for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic estrogen receptor+/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-breast cancer, which is Phase 3 clinical trial. Arvinas, Inc. has collaborations with Pfizer Inc., Genentech, Inc., F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Carrick Therapeutics Limited, and Bayer AG. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in New Haven, Connecticut.