Critical Review: Compass Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CMPX) and Immunocore (NASDAQ:IMCR)

Compass Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CMPX) and Immunocore (NASDAQ:IMCR) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Compass Therapeutics and Immunocore, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Compass Therapeutics	1	1	13	1	2.88
Immunocore	1	5	6	1	2.54

Compass Therapeutics presently has a consensus price target of $11.77, suggesting a potential upside of 394.51%. Immunocore has a consensus price target of $56.38, suggesting a potential upside of 56.03%. Given Compass Therapeutics’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Compass Therapeutics is more favorable than Immunocore.

Risk & Volatility

Compass Therapeutics has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Immunocore has a beta of 0.74, suggesting that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Compass Therapeutics and Immunocore’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Compass Therapeutics	N/A	-38.71%	-34.72%
Immunocore	-4.20%	-4.54%	-1.66%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

68.4% of Compass Therapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.5% of Immunocore shares are owned by institutional investors. 18.7% of Compass Therapeutics shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.1% of Immunocore shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Compass Therapeutics and Immunocore”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Compass Therapeutics	$850,000.00	504.25	-$66.49 million	($0.40)	-5.95
Immunocore	$400.02 million	4.65	-$35.51 million	($0.37)	-97.65

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

Summary

Compass Therapeutics beats Immunocore on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Compass Therapeutics

Compass Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company, engages in developing antibody-based therapeutics to treat various human diseases in the United States. The company's lead product candidates include CTX-009, a bispecific antibody that blocks Delta-like ligand 4 a ligand of Notch-1, and vascular endothelial growth factor A signaling pathways, which are critical to angiogenesis and tumor vascularization; and CTX-471, an IgG4 monoclonal antibody that is an agonist of CD137, a key co-stimulatory receptor on immune cells. It also develops CTX-8371, a bispecific inhibitor that targets PD-1 and PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor antibodies. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Immunocore

Immunocore Holdings plc, a commercial-stage biotechnology company, engages in the development of immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, infectious, and autoimmune diseases. The company offers KIMMTRAK for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma. It also develops other programs for oncology, including tebentafusp that is in Phase 2/3 clinical trial to treat advanced cutaneous melanoma. In addition, the company’s product pipeline comprises IMC-F106C, which is in a Phase 3 clinical trial to treat first line advanced cutaneous melanoma; and in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in multiple tumor types, such as platinum resistant ovarian, non-small cell lung, and endometrial carcinoma. Further, it develops IMC-R117C, which is in phase 1 clinical trial to treat colorectal and gastrointestinal cancers; IMC-M113V, which is in phase 1 clinical trial to treat human immunosuppression virus; IMC-I109V, which is in a Phase I clinical trial in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus; IMC-T119C, which is in preclinical trial for multiple solid tumor cancers; IMC-P115C, which is in preclinical trial to treat multiple solid tumor cancers; and IMC-S118AI to treat type 1 diabetes and is in preclinical trial. Immunocore Holdings plc was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Abingdon, the United Kingdom.