Critical Survey: Repligen (NASDAQ:RGEN) versus Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA)

Repligen (NASDAQ:RGEN) and Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

Repligen has a beta of 1.03, indicating that its stock price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ginkgo Bioworks has a beta of 1.78, indicating that its stock price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

97.6% of Repligen shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.6% of Ginkgo Bioworks shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Repligen shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 12.7% of Ginkgo Bioworks 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Repligen and Ginkgo Bioworks, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Repligen	0	3	12	3	3.00
Ginkgo Bioworks	2	2	0	0	1.50

Repligen currently has a consensus price target of $166.43, indicating a potential downside of 7.71%. Ginkgo Bioworks has a consensus price target of $7.00, indicating a potential upside of 0.56%. Given Ginkgo Bioworks’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Ginkgo Bioworks is more favorable than Repligen.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Repligen and Ginkgo Bioworks”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Repligen	$738.26 million	13.79	$48.89 million	$0.73	247.02
Ginkgo Bioworks	$170.15 million	2.75	-$312.76 million	($5.01)	-1.39

Repligen has higher revenue and earnings than Ginkgo Bioworks. Ginkgo Bioworks is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Repligen, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Repligen and Ginkgo Bioworks’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Repligen	5.29%	5.30%	3.79%
Ginkgo Bioworks	-259.96%	-60.27%	-26.88%

Summary

Repligen beats Ginkgo Bioworks on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Repligen

Repligen Corporation develops and commercializes bioprocessing technologies and systems for use in biological drug manufacturing process in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It offers Protein A ligands that are the binding components of Protein A affinity chromatography resins; and cell culture growth factor products. The company’s chromatography products include OPUS pre-packed chromatography columns, which are used in the purification of biologics; and OPUS smaller-scale columns that are used in the high throughput process development screening, viral clearance validation studies, and scale down validation of chromatography processes. It also offers ELISA test kits; and chromatography resins under the CaptivA brand. In addition, the company provides filtration products, such as XCell Alternating Tangential Flow systems that are filtration devices used in upstream perfusion and cell culture processing; TangenX flat sheet cassettes, which are used in downstream biologic drug concentration, buffer exchange, and formulation processes; KrosFlo tangential flow filtration and tangential flow depth filtration systems; Spectra/Por laboratory and process dialysis products, and ProConnex TFDF flow paths. Further, it provides process analytics products, such as slope spectroscopy systems under the SoloVPE, FlowVPE, and FlowVPX brands. The company sells its products to life sciences, biopharmaceutical, and diagnostics companies; laboratory researchers; and contract manufacturing organizations. Repligen Corporation has collaboration agreements with Navigo Proteins GmbH to develop multiple affinity ligands. The company was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

About Ginkgo Bioworks

Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops platform for cell programming in the United States. Its platform is used to program cells to enable biological production of products, such as novel therapeutics, food ingredients, and chemicals derived from petroleum. It serves pharma and biotech, agriculture, industrial and environment, food and nutrition, consumer and technology, and government and defense industries. Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.