LENZ Therapeutics (NASDAQ:LENZ) & CARGO Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRGX) Critical Review

LENZ Therapeutics (NASDAQ:LENZ) and CARGO Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRGX) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, risk, dividends, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for LENZ Therapeutics and CARGO Therapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LENZ Therapeutics	0	0	7	1	3.13
CARGO Therapeutics	1	6	0	0	1.86

LENZ Therapeutics presently has a consensus target price of $41.67, suggesting a potential upside of 57.29%. CARGO Therapeutics has a consensus target price of $15.00, suggesting a potential upside of 258.85%. Given CARGO Therapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe CARGO Therapeutics is more favorable than LENZ Therapeutics.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

54.3% of LENZ Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.2% of CARGO Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. 38.4% of LENZ Therapeutics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of CARGO Therapeutics shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares LENZ Therapeutics and CARGO Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LENZ Therapeutics	N/A	-58.48%	-55.50%
CARGO Therapeutics	N/A	-38.16%	-33.94%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares LENZ Therapeutics and CARGO Therapeutics”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LENZ Therapeutics	N/A	N/A	-$124.65 million	($4.77)	-5.55
CARGO Therapeutics	N/A	N/A	-$98.15 million	($3.72)	-1.12

LENZ Therapeutics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CARGO Therapeutics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

LENZ Therapeutics has a beta of 0.58, suggesting that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CARGO Therapeutics has a beta of 1.65, suggesting that its share price is 65% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

CARGO Therapeutics beats LENZ Therapeutics on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LENZ Therapeutics

LENZ Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing and commercializing therapies to improve vision in the United States. Its product candidates include LNZ100 and LNZ101 which are in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of presbyopia. The company is headquartered in Del Mar, California.

About CARGO Therapeutics

CARGO Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, develops chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for cancer patients. The company's lead program is CRG-022, an autologous CD22 CAR T-cell product candidate designed to address resistance mechanisms by targeting CD22, an alternate tumor antigen that is expressed in B-cell malignancies. It also develops CRG-023, a tri-specific CAR T product candidate that targets tumor cells with three B-cell antigen targets. The company was formerly known as Syncopation Life Sciences, Inc. and changed its name to CARGO Therapeutics, Inc. in September 2022. CARGO Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.