Financial Survey: AC Immune (ACIU) & The Competition

AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) is one of 844 public companies in the “Biotechnology” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare AC Immune to related companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for AC Immune and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AC Immune	1	1	2	1	2.60
AC Immune Competitors	9801	15087	45418	1579	2.54

AC Immune currently has a consensus target price of $7.50, indicating a potential upside of 239.37%. As a group, “Biotechnology” companies have a potential upside of 100.57%. Given AC Immune’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe AC Immune is more favorable than its competitors.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

51.4% of AC Immune shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 47.9% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are owned by institutional investors. 4.6% of AC Immune shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares AC Immune and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AC Immune	-181.38%	-97.79%	-24.62%
AC Immune Competitors	-12,359.35%	-203.09%	-30.93%

Risk and Volatility

AC Immune has a beta of 1.64, meaning that its stock price is 64% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AC Immune’s competitors have a beta of 1.14, meaning that their average stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AC Immune and its competitors revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
AC Immune	$4.31 million	-$85.03 million	-4.09
AC Immune Competitors	$736.12 million	$13.62 million	-14.91

AC Immune’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than AC Immune. AC Immune is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

AC Immune beats its competitors on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

About AC Immune

AC Immune SA, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers, designs, and develops medicines and diagnostic products for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein misfolding. Its SupraAntigen and Morphomer platforms are designed to generate vaccines, antibodies, and small molecules, which selectively interact with misfolded proteins that are common in a range of neurodegenerative diseases. The company is developing Crenezumab, a humanized, conformation-specific monoclonal antibody, which is in Phase II clinical studies trial for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is also developing ACI-24, an anti-Abeta vaccine candidate that is in Phase II clinical study for AD, as well as completed Phase Ib clinical study for Down syndrome; ACI-35, an anti-Tau vaccine candidate that is in Phase Ib/2a clinical study; and Tau- positron emission tomography (PET) imaging tracer, which is in Phase II clinical study. In addition, the company is researching and developing small molecule Tau aggregation inhibitors for AD and NeuroOrphan indications. Further, it has discovery and preclinical stage molecules targeting range of neurodegenerative diseases, which include diagnostics targeting TDP-43, alpha-synuclein, and NLRP3. AC Immune SA has license agreements and collaborations with Genentech, Inc.; Biogen International GmbH; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Life Molecular Imaging SA; Eli Lilly and Company; and WuXi Biologics. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.