Head to Head Review: Pliant Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PLRX) & Zealand Pharma A/S (OTCMKTS:ZLDPF)

Zealand Pharma A/S (OTCMKTS:ZLDPF) and Pliant Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PLRX) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.3% of Pliant Therapeutics shares are held by institutional investors. 8.7% of Pliant Therapeutics shares are held by 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Zealand Pharma A/S and Pliant Therapeutics, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Zealand Pharma A/S	1	7	1	1	2.20
Pliant Therapeutics	2	1	1	0	1.75

Pliant Therapeutics has a consensus target price of $3.00, suggesting a potential upside of 155.32%. Given Pliant Therapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Pliant Therapeutics is more favorable than Zealand Pharma A/S.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Zealand Pharma A/S and Pliant Therapeutics”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Zealand Pharma A/S	$1.40 billion	2.56	$977.29 million	$6.03	8.29
Pliant Therapeutics	$1.58 million	46.05	-$149.34 million	($1.49)	-0.79

Zealand Pharma A/S has higher revenue and earnings than Pliant Therapeutics. Pliant Therapeutics is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Zealand Pharma A/S, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Zealand Pharma A/S has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pliant Therapeutics has a beta of 1.24, suggesting that its stock price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Zealand Pharma A/S and Pliant Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Zealand Pharma A/S	58.86%	18.53%	17.14%
Pliant Therapeutics	N/A	-52.17%	-40.46%

Summary

Zealand Pharma A/S beats Pliant Therapeutics on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Zealand Pharma A/S

Zealand Pharma A/S, a biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of peptide-based medicines in Denmark. It has a portfolio of medicines focusing on gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases, and other specialty disease areas with unmet medical needs. The company offers Dasiglucagon, a single use syringe or autoinjector for the treatment of severe hypoglycemia; and Dasiglucagon bi-hormone artificial pancreas systems containing insulin and dasiglucagon. Its pipeline includes Dasiglucagon that is in Phase III clinical trials for treating congenital hyperinsulinism. The company is also developing glepaglutide, a long acting GLP-2 analog, which is in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of short bowel syndrome. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Søborg, Denmark.

About Pliant Therapeutics

Pliant Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers, develops, and commercializes novel therapies for the treatment of fibrosis and related diseases in the United States. The company's lead candidate is bexotegrast, an oral, small-molecule, dual selective inhibitor of avß6 and avß1 integrins, which is in phase 2b trials for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and in phase 2a trial for primary sclerosing cholangitis. It also develops PLN-1474, an oral, small-molecule selective inhibitor of avß1 for the treatment of liver fibrosis associated with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; PLN-101095, a dual inhibitor of integrins avß8 and avß1 for the treatment of solid tumors; and PLN-101325 for treatment of muscular dystrophies. Pliant Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is based in South San Francisco, California.