Reviewing Sagimet Biosciences (NASDAQ:SGMT) & NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA)

Sagimet Biosciences (NASDAQ:SGMT) and NuCana (NASDAQ:NCNA) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Sagimet Biosciences and NuCana’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sagimet Biosciences	N/A	-35.21%	-34.09%
NuCana	N/A	-319.85%	-88.55%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

87.9% of Sagimet Biosciences shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.0% of NuCana shares are owned by institutional investors. 14.7% of Sagimet Biosciences shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 31.2% of NuCana shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Sagimet Biosciences and NuCana, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sagimet Biosciences	0	0	6	0	3.00
NuCana	0	1	1	0	2.50

Sagimet Biosciences presently has a consensus target price of $26.83, suggesting a potential upside of 162.04%. NuCana has a consensus target price of $25.00, suggesting a potential upside of 41,846.31%. Given NuCana’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe NuCana is more favorable than Sagimet Biosciences.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Sagimet Biosciences and NuCana”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sagimet Biosciences	$2.00 million	157.03	-$45.57 million	($1.76)	-5.82
NuCana	N/A	N/A	-$24.28 million	($7.02)	-0.01

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

Volatility and Risk

Sagimet Biosciences has a beta of 3.35, indicating that its share price is 235% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NuCana has a beta of 1.42, indicating that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Sagimet Biosciences beats NuCana on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sagimet Biosciences

Sagimet Biosciences Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops therapeutics called fatty acid synthase (FASN) inhibitors for the treatment of diseases that result from dysfunctional metabolic pathways in the United States. The company’s lead drug candidate is Denifanstat, a once-daily pill and selective FASN inhibitor for the treatment of metabolic dysfunction associated steatohepatitis. It also develops TVB-3567, a FASN inhibitor for the treatment of acne; and other oncology programs. The company was formerly known as 3-V Biosciences, Inc. and changed its name to Sagimet Biosciences Inc. in August 2019. Sagimet Biosciences Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

About NuCana

NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development of medicines to treat patients with cancer. It applies its ProTide technology to transform prescribed chemotherapy agents and nucleoside analogs into medicines. The company, through its technology, is developing ProTides medicines to overcome the limitations of nucleoside analogs and generate much higher concentrations of anti-cancer metabolites in cancer cells. Its pipeline includes NUC-3373, a chemical entity derived from the nucleoside analog 5-fluorouracil that is in Phase 1b/2 study in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, Phase 2 clinical trial for the second-line treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer, and Phase 1b/2 modular clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors and lung cancer. It is also developing NUC-7738, a ProTide transformation of 3'-deoxyadenosine, which is in the Phase 2 part of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors. The company has an assignment, license, and collaboration agreement with Cardiff ProTides Ltd to discover, drug design, and in vitro screen purine and pyrimidine-based nucleosides as potential drug candidates. The company was formerly known as NuCana BioMed Limited and changed its name to NuCana plc in August 2017. NuCana plc was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.