Arcus Biosciences (NYSE:RCUS) & Kineta (NASDAQ:KA) Head to Head Contrast

Arcus Biosciences (NYSE:RCUS) and Kineta (NASDAQ:KA) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Arcus Biosciences and Kineta, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Arcus Biosciences	0	0	7	1	3.13
Kineta	0	0	1	0	3.00

Arcus Biosciences presently has a consensus target price of $35.71, suggesting a potential upside of 98.97%. Kineta has a consensus target price of $8.00, suggesting a potential upside of 941.67%. Given Kineta’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Kineta is more favorable than Arcus Biosciences.

Volatility & Risk

Arcus Biosciences has a beta of 0.9, indicating that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kineta has a beta of 0.46, indicating that its share price is 54% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Arcus Biosciences and Kineta’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Arcus Biosciences	-100.81%	-42.86%	-20.90%
Kineta	N/A	-1,044.95%	-336.46%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Arcus Biosciences and Kineta”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Arcus Biosciences	$247.00 million	6.61	-$307.00 million	($3.11)	-5.77
Kineta	$5.44 million	1.73	-$14.10 million	($1.50)	-0.51

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

92.9% of Arcus Biosciences shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.3% of Kineta shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.3% of Arcus Biosciences shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 23.7% of Kineta shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Arcus Biosciences beats Kineta on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Arcus Biosciences

Arcus Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes cancer therapies in the United States. The company's pipeline products include Domvanalimab, an anti-TIGIT antibody, which is in Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trial; and AB308, an investigational anti-TIGIT monoclonal antibody, which is in Phase 1b clinical trial to study people with advanced solid and hematologic malignancies. It also develops Etrumadenant, a dual A2a/A2b adenosine receptor antagonist, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial; Quemliclustat, a small-molecule CD73 inhibitor, which is Phase 1b and Phase 2 clinical trial; Zimberelimab, an anti-PD-1 antibody, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial for metastatic cell lung cancer and monotherapy; and AB521, an oral and small-molecule inhibitor of HIF-2a, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of Von Hippel-Lindau disease. In addition, the company's preclinical pipeline products include AB598, a CD39 antibody; and AB801, a small molecule Axl inhibitor. It has a clinical collaboration with AstraZeneca to evaluate domvanalimab in combination with durvalumab in a registrational phase 3 clinical trial in patients with unresectable Stage 3 NSCLC; and BVF Partners L.P. to support the discovery and development of compounds for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Arcus Biosciences, Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Hayward, California.

About Kineta

Kineta, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with a focus on developing immunotherapies that transform patients' lives. It focuses on developing potentially differentiated immunotherapies that address the challenges with current cancer therapy. The company's immuno-oncology pipeline includes KVA12123, a VISTA blocking immunotherapy in development as a twice weekly monoclonal antibody (mAb) infusion drug. KVA12123 is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial as a monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced solid tumors, including non-small cell lung, ovarian, renal cell carcinoma, head and neck, renal cell, and colorectal cancers. It is also developing anti-CD27 agonist mAb immunotherapy to address the problem of exhausted T cells. The company has collaboration and license agreements with MSD International Business GmbH, Genentech, Inc., FAIR Therapeutics B.V., and GigaGen, Inc. Kineta, Inc. is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.