Financial Review: Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) vs. bluebird bio (NASDAQ:BLUE)

bluebird bio (NASDAQ:BLUE) and Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for bluebird bio and Valneva, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
bluebird bio	1	7	2	0	2.10
Valneva	0	0	2	0	3.00

bluebird bio currently has a consensus target price of $44.14, indicating a potential upside of 981.93%. Valneva has a consensus target price of $17.00, indicating a potential upside of 151.85%. Given bluebird bio’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe bluebird bio is more favorable than Valneva.

Risk and Volatility

bluebird bio has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its share price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Valneva has a beta of 1.98, meaning that its share price is 98% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares bluebird bio and Valneva’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
bluebird bio	-565.74%	-322.46%	-53.17%
Valneva	-4.35%	-3.93%	-1.42%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares bluebird bio and Valneva”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
bluebird bio	$53.12 million	0.75	-$211.91 million	($37.40)	-0.11
Valneva	$158.54 million	3.46	-$109.78 million	($0.13)	-51.92

Valneva has higher revenue and earnings than bluebird bio. Valneva is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than bluebird bio, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

87.4% of bluebird bio shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.4% of Valneva shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.4% of bluebird bio shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.9% of Valneva shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Valneva beats bluebird bio on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About bluebird bio

bluebird bio, Inc., a biotechnology company, researches, develops, and commercializes gene therapies for severe genetic diseases. Its product candidates for severe genetic diseases include ZYNTEGLO (betibeglogene autotemcel) for the treatment of transfusion-dependent ß-thalassemia; lovotibeglogene autotemcel for the treatment of sickle cell disease (SCD); and SKYSONA (elivaldogene autotemcel) to treat cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy. The company’s clinical development programs include HGB-205, HGB-206, and HGB-210 to evaluate the safety and efficacy of lovo-cel in the treatment of patients with SCD; and HGB-204, HGB-205, HGB-207, and HGB-212 to evaluate the safety and efficacy of beti-cel in the treatment of patients with ß-thalassemia. It has license agreement with Orchard Therapeutics Limited. The company was formerly known as Genetix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and changed its name to bluebird bio, Inc. in September 2010. bluebird bio, Inc. was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine. The company also develops VLA15, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against Borrelia, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease; VLA1553, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against the chikungunya virus; VLA1554, a vaccine candidate targeting human metapneumovirus; and VLA2112, a vaccine candidate to treat patients with epstein-barr virus. It sells its products in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Nordics, the United Kingdom, France, rest of European countries, and internationally. Valneva SE has collaborations with Pfizer, Inc. to co-develop and commercialize its Lyme disease vaccine; and Instituto Butantan for the development, manufacturing, and marketing of single-shot chikungunya vaccine. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in Saint-Herblain, France.