Verrica Pharmaceuticals (VRCA) and Its Peers Head to Head Analysis

Verrica Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRCA) is one of 896 publicly-traded companies in the “Pharmaceuticals” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Verrica Pharmaceuticals to similar companies based on the strength of its dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Verrica Pharmaceuticals and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Verrica Pharmaceuticals	1	1	3	0	2.40
Verrica Pharmaceuticals Competitors	7797	13888	25778	1037	2.41

Verrica Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus price target of $12.67, suggesting a potential upside of 297.07%. As a group, “Pharmaceuticals” companies have a potential upside of 25.61%. Given Verrica Pharmaceuticals’ higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Verrica Pharmaceuticals is more favorable than its peers.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

42.5% of Verrica Pharmaceuticals shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 32.5% of shares of all “Pharmaceuticals” companies are held by institutional investors. 52.9% of Verrica Pharmaceuticals shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.2% of shares of all “Pharmaceuticals” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Verrica Pharmaceuticals and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Verrica Pharmaceuticals	-102.84%	-407.11%	-70.17%
Verrica Pharmaceuticals Competitors	-2,380.38%	-217.94%	-15.54%

Risk and Volatility

Verrica Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 1.69, meaning that its stock price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Verrica Pharmaceuticals’ peers have a beta of -3.71, meaning that their average stock price is 471% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Verrica Pharmaceuticals and its peers revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Verrica Pharmaceuticals	$35.58 million	-$17.89 million	-1.91
Verrica Pharmaceuticals Competitors	$3.54 billion	$3.18 billion	554.47

Verrica Pharmaceuticals’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Verrica Pharmaceuticals. Verrica Pharmaceuticals is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Verrica Pharmaceuticals peers beat Verrica Pharmaceuticals on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

Verrica Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical-stage dermatology therapeutics company, develops medications for the treatment of skin diseases in the United States. Its product pipeline comprises YCANTH (VP-102), which is in phase III clinical trial for the treatment of common warts; and has completed phase II clinical trial for the treatment of external genital warts. The company also develops VP-315, an oncolytic peptide-based injectable therapy, which is in phase II clinical trial for the treatment of dermatology oncologic conditions which includes basal cell carcinoma; and VP-103, a cantharidin-based product candidate for the treatment of plantar warts and is in phase II clinical trial. In addition, it offers YCANTH for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum. The company has a collaboration and license agreement with Torii Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. for the development and commercialization of its product candidates for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum and common warts in Japan, including VP-102; and a license agreement with Lytix Biopharma AS to develop and commercialize VP-315 for dermatological oncology indications, such as non-metastatic melanoma and non-metastatic merkel cell carcinoma. Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania.