Critical Review: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) and Apellis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:APLS)

Apellis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:APLS) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Apellis Pharmaceuticals	0	7	11	2	2.75
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals	1	5	18	0	2.71

Apellis Pharmaceuticals currently has a consensus target price of $49.94, suggesting a potential upside of 46.29%. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has a consensus target price of $298.09, suggesting a potential upside of 17.48%. Given Apellis Pharmaceuticals’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Apellis Pharmaceuticals is more favorable than Alnylam Pharmaceuticals.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Apellis Pharmaceuticals	$715.22 million	5.94	-$528.63 million	($2.03)	-16.82
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals	$1.83 billion	17.90	-$440.24 million	($2.62)	-96.85

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

Profitability

This table compares Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Apellis Pharmaceuticals	-34.97%	-103.11%	-28.96%
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals	-15.86%	N/A	-8.38%

Risk & Volatility

Apellis Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.39, meaning that its stock price is 61% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

96.3% of Apellis Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.0% of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.8% of Apellis Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Apellis Pharmaceuticals beats Alnylam Pharmaceuticals on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Apellis Pharmaceuticals

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutic compounds through the inhibition of the complement system for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It offers EMPAVELI for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, C3 glomerulopathy and immune complex membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-associated thrombotic microangiopathy; and SYFOVRE for treating geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy (GA). The company also develops APL-3007, a small interfering RNA, or siRNA, which is in a Phase 1 clinical trial, as well as an oral complement inhibitor that is in preclinical development. It has a collaboration and license agreement with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (publ) for development and commercialization of pegcetacoplan; and a collaboration with Beam Therapeutics Inc. focused on the use of Beam’s base editing technology to discover new treatments for complement-driven diseases. The company was incorporated in 2009 and is based in Waltham, Massachusetts.

About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on discovering, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutics based on ribonucleic acid interference. Its marketed products include ONPATTRO (patisiran) for the treatment of the polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis in adults; AMVUTTRA for the treatment of hATTR amyloidosis with polyneuropathy in adults; GIVLAARI for the treatment of adults with acute hepatic porphyria; and OXLUMO for the treatment of primary hyperoxaluria type 1. In addition, the company develops patisiran for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis, or ATTR amyloidosis, with cardiomyopathy; cemdisiran to treat complement-mediated diseases; Belcesiran for the treatment of alpha-1 liver disease; Elebsiran to treat chronic HBV infection; Zilebesiran to treat hypertension; ALN-APP to treat Alzheimer's disease and cerebral amyloid angiopathy; and ALN-HSD to treat NASH. Further, it offers Fitusiran for the treatment of hemophilia, Inclisiran to treat hypercholesterolemia, lumasiran for the treatment of advanced PH1, and vutrisiran for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis, which is in phase 3 clinical trial. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has strategic collaborations with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to discover, develop, and commercialize RNAi therapeutics for a range of diseases by addressing therapeutic targets expressed in the eye and CNS; and Roche to develop pharmaceutical products containing zilebesiran. It also has license and collaboration agreements with Novartis AG; Vir Biotechnology, Inc.; Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; and PeptiDream, Inc. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.