Reviewing Vigil Neuroscience (NASDAQ:VIGL) and Prime Medicine (NYSE:PRME)

Prime Medicine (NYSE:PRME) and Vigil Neuroscience (NASDAQ:VIGL) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Prime Medicine and Vigil Neuroscience”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Prime Medicine	$3.85 million	41.99	-$198.13 million	($1.61)	-0.76
Vigil Neuroscience	N/A	N/A	-$82.64 million	($2.05)	-3.84

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

Risk and Volatility

Prime Medicine has a beta of 1.9, meaning that its stock price is 90% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vigil Neuroscience has a beta of 1.9, meaning that its stock price is 90% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Prime Medicine and Vigil Neuroscience, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Prime Medicine	0	2	4	1	2.86
Vigil Neuroscience	0	3	2	0	2.40

Prime Medicine presently has a consensus price target of $11.80, suggesting a potential upside of 859.35%. Vigil Neuroscience has a consensus price target of $15.00, suggesting a potential upside of 90.36%. Given Prime Medicine’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Prime Medicine is more favorable than Vigil Neuroscience.

Profitability

This table compares Prime Medicine and Vigil Neuroscience’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Prime Medicine	N/A	-107.87%	-74.97%
Vigil Neuroscience	N/A	-83.89%	-65.34%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

70.4% of Prime Medicine shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.6% of Vigil Neuroscience shares are owned by institutional investors. 23.5% of Prime Medicine shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.0% of Vigil Neuroscience shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Prime Medicine beats Vigil Neuroscience on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Prime Medicine

Prime Medicine, Inc., a biotechnology company, delivers genetic therapies to address the spectrum of diseases by deploying gene editing technology. The company offers Prime Editors with a Prime Editor protein, comprising a fusion between a Cas protein and a reverse transcriptase enzyme; and a pegRNA, which targets the Prime Editor to a specific genomic location and provides a template for making the desired edit to the target DNA sequence. It has a research collaboration with Cimeio Therapeutics to develop Prime Edited Shielded-Cell & Immunotherapy Pairs for genetic diseases, acute myeloid leukemia, and myelodysplastic syndrome. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About Vigil Neuroscience

Vigil Neuroscience, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, focuses on developing treatments for rare and common neurodegenerative diseases by restoring the vigilance of microglia, the sentinel immune cells of the brain. Its lead candidate is VGL101(Iluzanebart), a human monoclonal antibody agonist targeting human triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 and is in a Phase 2 trial in patients with adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP), a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease. The company is also developing VG-3927, an orally-available small molecule TREM2 agonist to treat common neurodegenerative diseases associated with microglial dysfunction, with an initial focus on Alzheimer’s disease in genetically defined subpopulations, which is being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial. It has license agreement with Amgen Inc. to commercially develop, manufacture, use, distribute, and sell therapeutic products containing compounds that bind to TREM2. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts.