BioAtla (NASDAQ:BCAB) & Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) Head-To-Head Comparison

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Novavax and BioAtla, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Novavax	1	2	4	0	2.43
BioAtla	0	1	1	0	2.50

Novavax presently has a consensus target price of $17.71, indicating a potential upside of 195.73%. BioAtla has a consensus target price of $6.00, indicating a potential upside of 1,296.00%. Given BioAtla’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe BioAtla is more favorable than Novavax.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Novavax and BioAtla”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Novavax	$682.16 million	1.41	-$545.06 million	($1.33)	-4.50
BioAtla	$11.00 million	2.28	-$123.46 million	($1.22)	-0.35

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

Profitability

This table compares Novavax and BioAtla’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Novavax	-32.18%	N/A	-17.05%
BioAtla	N/A	-187.30%	-96.33%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

53.0% of Novavax shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.2% of BioAtla shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Novavax shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 11.5% of BioAtla shares are owned by 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.

Risk and Volatility

Novavax has a beta of 3.21, suggesting that its stock price is 221% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BioAtla has a beta of 1.01, suggesting that its stock price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

BioAtla beats Novavax on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Novavax

Novavax, Inc., a biotechnology company, that promotes improved health by discovering, developing, and commercializing vaccines to protect against serious infectious diseases. It offers vaccine platform that combines a recombinant protein approach, nanoparticle technology, and its patented Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response. It focuses on urgent health challenges, which is evaluating vaccines for COVID-19, influenza, and COVID-19 influenza combination. The company is commercializing a COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373 under the brand names of Nuvaxovid, Covovax, and Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, adjuvanted for adult and adolescent populations as a primary series and for both homologous and heterologous booster indications. It is also developing R21/Matrix-M adjuvant malaria vaccine. Novavax, Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

About BioAtla

BioAtla, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops specific and selective antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of solid tumor cancer. The company's lead clinical stage product candidates include mecbotamab vedotin (BA3011), a conditionally active biologic (CAB) antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), which is in Phase II clinical trial for treating undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); and ozuriftabmab vedotin (BA3021), a CAB ADC that is in Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of melanoma and squamous cell cancer of the head and neck. It is also developing Evalstotug (BA3071), a CAB anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 antibody, which is in Phase II clinical trial for treating melanoma, carcinomas, and NSCLC; and BA3182, a bispecific candidate that is in Phase 1 study for the treatment of adenocarcinomas, as well as BA3361, which is in preclinical studies for treating multiple tumor types. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.