Critical Survey: Genprex (NASDAQ:GNPX) vs. Rocket Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RCKT)

Rocket Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RCKT) and Genprex (NASDAQ:GNPX) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Rocket Pharmaceuticals and Genprex, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Rocket Pharmaceuticals	0	1	9	0	2.90
Genprex	0	0	1	0	3.00

Rocket Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus target price of $51.75, indicating a potential upside of 162.29%. Genprex has a consensus target price of $10.00, indicating a potential upside of 2,050.54%. Given Genprex’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Genprex is more favorable than Rocket Pharmaceuticals.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Rocket Pharmaceuticals and Genprex’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Rocket Pharmaceuticals	N/A	N/A	-$245.60 million	($2.87)	-6.87
Genprex	N/A	N/A	-$30.86 million	N/A	N/A

Volatility and Risk

Rocket Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Genprex has a beta of -0.57, meaning that its share price is 157% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.4% of Rocket Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 14.1% of Genprex shares are owned by institutional investors. 31.1% of Rocket Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.5% of Genprex shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Rocket Pharmaceuticals and Genprex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Rocket Pharmaceuticals	N/A	-54.47%	-47.99%
Genprex	N/A	-318.57%	-224.95%

Summary

Rocket Pharmaceuticals beats Genprex on 6 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Rocket Pharmaceuticals

Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a late-stage biotechnology company that focuses on developing gene therapies for rare and devastating diseases. It has three clinical-stage ex vivo lentiviral vector programs for fanconi anemia, a genetic defect in the bone marrow that reduces production of blood cells or promotes the production of faulty blood cells; leukocyte adhesion deficiency-I, a genetic disorder that causes the immune system to malfunction; and pyruvate kinase deficiency, a rare red blood cell autosomal recessive disorder that results in chronic non-spherocytic hemolytic anemia. The company also has a clinical stage in vivo adeno-associated virus program for Danon disease, a multi-organ lysosomal-associated disorder leading to early death due to heart failure; Plakophilin-2 Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy, an inheritable cardiac disorder; and BAG3 Dilated Cardiomyopathy. It has license agreements with Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas, Centro de Investigacion Biomedica En Red, and Fundacion Instituto de investigacion Sanitaria Fundacion Jimenez Diaz; UCL Business PLC; The Regents of the University of California; and REGENXBIO, Inc. Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Cranbury, New Jersey.

About Genprex

Genprex, Inc., a clinical-stage gene therapy company, focuses on developing gene-based therapies for patients with cancer and diabetes in the United States. The company's lead product candidate is REQORSA (GPX-001), which is in preclinical trials to treat non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer; and GPX-002, which is in preclinical trials to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Its product pipeline comprises Acclaim-1, which is in phase 2a clinical trial for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer; Acclaim-2, which is in phase phase 1/2 clinical trial for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer; and Acclaim-3, which is in phase 1/2 clinical trial for the treatment of small cell lung cancer. The company also develops ONC-001, REQORSA as a monotherapy, which is in phase 1 clinical trial to treat advance non-small cell lung cancer; and ONC-002, REQORSA with Tarceva, which is in phase 2 clinical trial to treat non-small cell lung cancer. Genprex, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.