AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) versus Silence Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SLN) Head to Head Survey

AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) and Silence Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SLN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for AC Immune and Silence Therapeutics, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AC Immune	0	0	2	0	3.00
Silence Therapeutics	1	0	6	0	2.71

AC Immune currently has a consensus price target of $12.00, indicating a potential upside of 395.87%. Silence Therapeutics has a consensus price target of $45.00, indicating a potential upside of 994.89%. Given Silence Therapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Silence Therapeutics is more favorable than AC Immune.

Profitability

This table compares AC Immune and Silence Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AC Immune	N/A	-28.26%	-18.98%
Silence Therapeutics	-342.00%	-62.81%	-33.89%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

51.4% of AC Immune shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.7% of Silence Therapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.6% of AC Immune shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.0% of Silence Therapeutics shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares AC Immune and Silence Therapeutics”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AC Immune	$16.48 million	14.53	-$60.41 million	($0.46)	-5.26
Silence Therapeutics	$16.25 million	7.57	-$53.82 million	($1.57)	-2.62

Silence Therapeutics has lower revenue, but higher earnings than AC Immune. AC Immune is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Silence Therapeutics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

AC Immune has a beta of 1.3, meaning that its share price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Silence Therapeutics has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

AC Immune beats Silence Therapeutics on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Silence Therapeutics

Silence Therapeutics plc, a biotechnology company, focuses on the discovery and development novel molecules incorporating short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) to inhibit the expression of specific target genes in hematology, cardiovascular, and rare diseases. The company's mRNAi GalNAc Oligonucleotide Discovery platform consists of precision engineered product candidates designed to target specific disease-associated genes in the liver. The company develops Zerlasiran (SLN360), which is in phase 2 clinical trial for cardiovascular disease associated with elevated lipoprotein(a); and Divesiran (SLN124), an siRNA molecule that is in Phase I clinical trials for the treatment of genetic hematological conditions, including polycythemia vera. It is also developing SLN-COMP-1 and SLN-COMP-2 for complement-mediated diseases; and SLN-HAN-1 and SLN-HAN-2. It has collaboration agreements with AstraZeneca PLC to discover, develop, and commercialize siRNA therapeutics for the treatment of cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, and respiratory diseases; Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Company Limited to develop siRNAs; and Mallinckrodt Pharma IP Trading DAC to develop and commercialize RNAi drug targets designed to silence the complement cascade in complement-mediated disorders. The company was formerly known as SR Pharma plc and changed its name to Silence Therapeutics plc in May 2007. Silence Therapeutics plc was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.