Head to Head Survey: Cellectis (NASDAQ:CLLS) vs. NKGen Biotech (NYSE:NKGN)

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

Earnings & Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
NKGen Biotech	$80,000.00	154.70	-$82.94 million	($5.08)	-0.07
Cellectis	$9.19 million	11.31	-$101.06 million	($1.30)	-1.44

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

76.2% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.9% of Cellectis shares are held by institutional investors. 74.7% of NKGen Biotech shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.4% of Cellectis shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares NKGen Biotech and Cellectis’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
NKGen Biotech	N/A	N/A	-479.36%
Cellectis	-234.39%	-74.55%	-22.65%

Risk and Volatility

NKGen Biotech has a beta of 0.53, meaning that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cellectis has a beta of 3.1, meaning that its stock price is 210% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for NKGen Biotech and Cellectis, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
NKGen Biotech	0	0	0	0	0.00
Cellectis	0	0	3	0	3.00

Cellectis has a consensus price target of $7.00, indicating a potential upside of 274.33%. Given Cellectis’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Cellectis is more favorable than NKGen Biotech.

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.

About Cellectis

Cellectis S.A., a clinical stage biotechnological company, develops immuno-oncology products based on gene-edited T-cells that express chimeric antigen receptors to target and eradicate cancer cells. The company is developing UCART19, an allogeneic T-cell product candidate for the treatment of CD19-expressing hematologic malignancies, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia; ALLO-501 and ALLO-501A to treat relapsed or refractory for non-hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); and ALLO-715 for the treatment of multiple myeloma. It also develops UCART22 to treat B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; UCARTCS1 and ALLO-605 for the treatment of multiple myeloma; ALLO-316 for renal cell carcinoma; UCART123 for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia; and UCART 20×22 for relapsed or refractory B-Cell NHL. The company has strategic alliances with Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. and Les Laboratoires Servier; research collaboration and exclusive license agreement with Iovance Biotherapeutics; and collaboration and license agreement with Cytovia, as well as a collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca to develop novel cell and gene therapy candidate products. Cellectis S.A. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Paris, France.