Reviewing Agios Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AGIO) and Nuvalent (NASDAQ:NUVL)

Agios Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AGIO) and Nuvalent (NASDAQ:NUVL) are both mid-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Agios Pharmaceuticals and Nuvalent”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Agios Pharmaceuticals	$26.82 million	125.39	-$352.09 million	$11.36	5.19
Nuvalent	N/A	N/A	-$126.22 million	($3.47)	-27.01

Nuvalent has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Agios Pharmaceuticals. Nuvalent is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Agios Pharmaceuticals, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Agios Pharmaceuticals and Nuvalent, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Agios Pharmaceuticals	0	4	4	0	2.50
Nuvalent	1	1	10	1	2.85

Agios Pharmaceuticals currently has a consensus price target of $52.33, suggesting a potential downside of 11.25%. Nuvalent has a consensus price target of $112.60, suggesting a potential upside of 20.13%. Given Nuvalent’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Nuvalent is more favorable than Agios Pharmaceuticals.

Profitability

This table compares Agios Pharmaceuticals and Nuvalent’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Agios Pharmaceuticals	2,051.38%	-2.93%	-2.58%
Nuvalent	N/A	-28.63%	-27.15%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.3% of Nuvalent shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.9% of Agios Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.5% of Nuvalent shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

Agios Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nuvalent has a beta of 1.31, meaning that its share price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Nuvalent beats Agios Pharmaceuticals on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Agios Pharmaceuticals

Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, discovers and develops medicines in the field of cellular metabolism in the United States. Its lead product includes PYRUKYND (mitapivat), an activator of wild-type and mutant pyruvate kinase (PK), enzymes for the treatment of hemolytic anemias. The company develops AG-946, a PK activator for treating lower-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and hemolytic anemias; and AG-181, a phenylalanine hydroxylase stabilizer for the treatment of phenylketonuria. Its preclinical product is siRNA for the treatment of polycythemia vera, a rare blood disorder. Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About Nuvalent

Nuvalent, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development of therapies for patients with cancer. Its lead product candidates are NVL-520, a novel ROS1-selective inhibitor to address the clinical challenges of emergent treatment resistance, central nervous system (CNS)-related adverse events, and brain metastases that may limit the use of ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for patients with ROS proto-oncogene 1 (ROS1)-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) which is under the phase 2 portion of the ARROS-1 Phase 1/2 clinical trial; NVL-655, a brain-penetrant ALK-selective inhibitor, to address the clinical challenges of emergent treatment resistance, CNS-related adverse events, and brain metastases that might limit the use of first-, second-, and third-generation ALK inhibitors that is under the phase 2 portion of the ALKOVE-1 Phase 1/2 clinical trial; and NVL-330, a brain-penetrant human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-selective inhibitor designed to treat tumors driven by HER2ex20, brain metastases, and avoiding treatment-limiting adverse events including due to off-target inhibition of wild-type EGFR, which is expected to initiate phase 1 trial. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.