Reviewing Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) & Lifecore Biomedical (NASDAQ:LFCR)

Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) and Lifecore Biomedical (NASDAQ:LFCR) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Liquidia and Lifecore Biomedical, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liquidia	1	0	6	2	3.00
Lifecore Biomedical	0	2	2	0	2.50

Liquidia currently has a consensus price target of $26.67, suggesting a potential upside of 61.32%. Lifecore Biomedical has a consensus price target of $8.00, suggesting a potential upside of 16.45%. Given Liquidia’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Liquidia is more favorable than Lifecore Biomedical.

Profitability

This table compares Liquidia and Lifecore Biomedical’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liquidia	-765.38%	-163.21%	-67.14%
Lifecore Biomedical	-12.52%	-315.23%	-12.74%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

64.5% of Liquidia shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.4% of Lifecore Biomedical shares are owned by institutional investors. 26.5% of Liquidia shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 32.2% of Lifecore Biomedical shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Liquidia has a beta of 0.24, meaning that its stock price is 76% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lifecore Biomedical has a beta of 0.65, meaning that its stock price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Liquidia and Lifecore Biomedical”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liquidia	$14.14 million	99.91	-$78.50 million	($1.58)	-10.46
Lifecore Biomedical	$130.31 million	1.95	$12.01 million	($1.45)	-4.74

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

Summary

Lifecore Biomedical beats Liquidia on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Liquidia

Liquidia Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes various products for unmet patient needs in the United States. Its lead product candidates include YUTREPIA, an inhaled dry powder formulation of treprostinil for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and pulmonary hypertension associated with interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD). The company also offers Remodulin, a treprostinil administered through continuous intravenous and subcutaneous infusion. The company also a license agreement with Pharmosa Biopharm Inc to develop and commercialize L606, an inhaled sustained-release formulation of Treprostinil for the treatment of PAH and PH-ILD. Liquidia Corporation was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina.

About Lifecore Biomedical

Lifecore Biomedical, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated contract development and manufacturing organization in the United States and internationally. The company engages in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical-grade sodium hyaluronate (HA) in bulk form, as well as formulated and filled syringes and vials for injectable products used in treating a range of medical conditions and procedures. It also provides services, such as technology development, material component changes, analytical method development, formulation development, pilot studies, stability studies, process validation, and production of materials for clinical studies to its partners for HA-based and non-HA based aseptically formulated and filled products. The company was formerly known as Landec Corporation and changed its name to Lifecore Biomedical, Inc. in November 2022. Lifecore Biomedical, Inc. was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Chaska, Minnesota.