Head to Head Analysis: Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) and NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA)

Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) and NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Risk and Volatility

Clearside Biomedical has a beta of 2.05, meaning that its stock price is 105% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NuCana has a beta of 1.42, meaning that its stock price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

18.8% of Clearside Biomedical shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.0% of NuCana shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.2% of Clearside Biomedical shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 31.2% of NuCana shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Clearside Biomedical and NuCana’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Clearside Biomedical	-818.57%	N/A	-114.23%
NuCana	N/A	-319.85%	-88.55%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Clearside Biomedical and NuCana, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Clearside Biomedical	0	5	1	0	2.17
NuCana	0	1	1	0	2.50

Clearside Biomedical presently has a consensus target price of $4.20, indicating a potential upside of 833.33%. NuCana has a consensus target price of $25.00, indicating a potential upside of 53,433.19%. Given NuCana’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe NuCana is more favorable than Clearside Biomedical.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Clearside Biomedical and NuCana”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Clearside Biomedical	$1.66 million	21.07	-$34.35 million	($0.41)	-1.10
NuCana	N/A	N/A	-$24.28 million	($7.02)	-0.01

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

Summary

NuCana beats Clearside Biomedical on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Clearside Biomedical

Clearside Biomedical, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the revolutionizing the delivery of therapies to the back of the eye through the suprachoroidal space. It offers XIPERE, a triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension for the treatment of uveitis macular edema. It also develops CLS-AX, an axitinib injectable suspension for suprachoroidal injection, which is in Phase IIb clinical trial to treat wet AMD. The company has a collaboration with Bausch Health, Arctic Vision, REGENXBIO, Inc., BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Aura Biosciences. Clearside Biomedical, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.

About NuCana

NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development of medicines to treat patients with cancer. It applies its ProTide technology to transform prescribed chemotherapy agents and nucleoside analogs into medicines. The company, through its technology, is developing ProTides medicines to overcome the limitations of nucleoside analogs and generate much higher concentrations of anti-cancer metabolites in cancer cells. Its pipeline includes NUC-3373, a chemical entity derived from the nucleoside analog 5-fluorouracil that is in Phase 1b/2 study in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, Phase 2 clinical trial for the second-line treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer, and Phase 1b/2 modular clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors and lung cancer. It is also developing NUC-7738, a ProTide transformation of 3'-deoxyadenosine, which is in the Phase 2 part of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors. The company has an assignment, license, and collaboration agreement with Cardiff ProTides Ltd to discover, drug design, and in vitro screen purine and pyrimidine-based nucleosides as potential drug candidates. The company was formerly known as NuCana BioMed Limited and changed its name to NuCana plc in August 2017. NuCana plc was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.