Reviewing Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) and Scholar Rock (NASDAQ:SRRK)

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

91.1% of Scholar Rock shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.4% of Valneva shares are held by institutional investors. 19.2% of Scholar Rock shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 14.9% of Valneva shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Scholar Rock and Valneva, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Scholar Rock	0	0	6	1	3.14
Valneva	0	0	2	0	3.00

Scholar Rock presently has a consensus price target of $40.43, suggesting a potential downside of 4.15%. Valneva has a consensus price target of $18.50, suggesting a potential upside of 367.17%. Given Valneva’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Valneva is more favorable than Scholar Rock.

Profitability

This table compares Scholar Rock and Valneva’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Scholar Rock	N/A	-145.60%	-91.83%
Valneva	-4.35%	-3.93%	-1.42%

Risk and Volatility

Scholar Rock has a beta of 0.58, meaning that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Valneva has a beta of 1.99, meaning that its share price is 99% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Scholar Rock and Valneva”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Scholar Rock	$33.19 million	118.97	-$165.79 million	($2.35)	-17.95
Valneva	$158.54 million	2.03	-$109.78 million	($0.13)	-30.46

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

Summary

Scholar Rock beats Valneva on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Scholar Rock

Scholar Rock Holding Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, and delivery of medicines for the treatment of serious diseases in which signaling by protein growth factors plays a fundamental role. The company develops Apitegromab, an inhibitor of the activation of myostatin that is in Phase 3 clinical trial for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy; and SRK-181, which has completed Phase 1 clinical trials for the treatment of cancers that are resistant to checkpoint inhibitor therapies, such as anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 antibody therapies. It is developing a pipeline of product candidates to deliver novel therapies to treat a range of serious diseases, including neuromuscular disorders, cardiometabolic disorders, cancer, fibrosis, and iron-restricted anemia. Scholar Rock Holding Corporation was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Cambridge, 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.