HilleVax (NASDAQ:HLVX) & ProKidney (NASDAQ:PROK) Head-To-Head Comparison

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for ProKidney and HilleVax, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ProKidney	0	2	2	0	2.50
HilleVax	0	0	4	0	3.00

ProKidney presently has a consensus price target of $7.25, suggesting a potential upside of 211.16%. HilleVax has a consensus price target of $29.00, suggesting a potential upside of 105.67%. Given ProKidney’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe ProKidney is more favorable than HilleVax.

Profitability

This table compares ProKidney and HilleVax’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ProKidney	N/A	N/A	-8.09%
HilleVax	N/A	-56.18%	-43.75%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

51.6% of ProKidney shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.4% of HilleVax shares are held by institutional investors. 41.5% of ProKidney shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 71.1% of HilleVax shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares ProKidney and HilleVax’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ProKidney	N/A	N/A	-$35.47 million	($0.57)	-4.09
HilleVax	N/A	N/A	-$123.57 million	($3.30)	-4.27

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

Risk and Volatility

ProKidney has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HilleVax has a beta of 0.78, meaning that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ProKidney beats HilleVax on 7 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ProKidney

ProKidney Corp., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, provides transformative proprietary cell therapy platform for treating various chronic kidney diseases in the United States. The company's lead product is Renal Autologous Cell Therapy (REACT), an autologous homologous cell admixture, which has completed Phase I clinical trial for REACT in patients with congenital anomalies of the Kidney and Urinary Tract (CAKUT), as well as in Phase III and Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of moderate to severe diabetic kidney disease. ProKidney Corp. founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

About HilleVax

HilleVax, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing and commercializing novel vaccines in the United States. It develops HIL-214, a virus-like particle-based vaccine candidate for the prevention of moderate-to-severe acute gastroenteritis caused by norovirus infection. The company was formerly known as MokshaCo, Inc. and changed its name to HilleVax, Inc. in February 2021. HilleVax, Inc. was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.