Head to Head Analysis: Prime Medicine (NYSE:PRME) versus NKGen Biotech (NYSE:NKGN)

Prime Medicine (NYSE:PRME) and NKGen Biotech (NYSE:NKGN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

70.4% of Prime Medicine shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.2% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by institutional investors. 23.5% of Prime Medicine shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 74.7% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Prime Medicine and NKGen Biotech”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Prime Medicine	$800,000.00	426.27	-$198.13 million	($2.05)	-1.27
NKGen Biotech	$80,000.00	432.03	-$82.94 million	($5.08)	-0.15

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

Volatility & Risk

Prime Medicine has a beta of 1.86, suggesting that its stock price is 86% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NKGen Biotech has a beta of 0.48, suggesting that its stock price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Prime Medicine and NKGen Biotech, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Prime Medicine	0	0	9	1	3.10
NKGen Biotech	0	0	0	0	0.00

Prime Medicine presently has a consensus target price of $13.13, indicating a potential upside of 404.81%. Given Prime Medicine’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Prime Medicine is more favorable than NKGen Biotech.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Prime Medicine	N/A	-107.87%	-74.97%
NKGen Biotech	N/A	N/A	-479.36%

Summary

Prime Medicine beats NKGen Biotech on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Prime Medicine

Prime Medicine, Inc., a biotechnology company, delivers genetic therapies to address the spectrum of diseases by deploying gene editing technology. The company offers Prime Editors with a Prime Editor protein, comprising a fusion between a Cas protein and a reverse transcriptase enzyme; and a pegRNA, which targets the Prime Editor to a specific genomic location and provides a template for making the desired edit to the target DNA sequence. It has a research collaboration with Cimeio Therapeutics to develop Prime Edited Shielded-Cell & Immunotherapy Pairs for genetic diseases, acute myeloid leukemia, and myelodysplastic syndrome. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About NKGen Biotech

NKGen Biotech, Inc. operates as a clinical-stage biotechnology company that focuses on the development and commercialization of autologous, allogeneic, and CAR-NK natural killer cell therapies. It develops SNK01, an autologous NK cell therapy; and SNK02, an allogeneic NK cell therapy, which are in Phase 1 clinical trials. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Santa Ana, California.