Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) versus Grifols (NASDAQ:GRFS) Critical Review

Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) and Grifols (NASDAQ:GRFS) are both healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Altimmune and Grifols, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Altimmune	1	1	8	0	2.70
Grifols	1	2	0	0	1.67

Altimmune presently has a consensus target price of $14.33, suggesting a potential upside of 569.78%. Grifols has a consensus target price of $9.00, suggesting a potential upside of 11.94%. Given Altimmune’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Altimmune is more favorable than Grifols.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Altimmune and Grifols”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Altimmune	$40,000.00	10,406.82	-$88.09 million	($0.78)	-2.74
Grifols	$8.51 billion	0.64	$454.82 million	$0.19	42.32

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

78.0% of Altimmune shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of Altimmune shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Grifols shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Altimmune and Grifols’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Altimmune	N/A	-31.41%	-26.96%
Grifols	5.54%	6.21%	2.39%

Risk & Volatility

Altimmune has a beta of 0.06, indicating that its share price is 94% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Grifols has a beta of 0.7, indicating that its share price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Grifols beats Altimmune on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Altimmune

Altimmune, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing treatments for obesity and liver diseases. The company's lead product candidate, pemvidutide, a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist that is in Phase 2 trial for the treatment of obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. It is also developing HepTcell, an immunotherapeutic product candidate, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial for patients chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus. The company was formerly known as Vaxin Inc. and changed its name to Altimmune, Inc. in September 2015. Altimmune, Inc. was founded in 1997 is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

About Grifols

Grifols, S.A. operates as a plasma therapeutic company in Spain, the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company provides immunoglobulin to treat immunodeficiencies; albumin used to restore circulatory volume and protein loss in pathophysiological conditions, such as liver cirrhosis, cardiocirculatory failure, trauma and severe burns; alpha-1 proteinase inhibitor, a plasma protein, used to treat a genetic disease known as alpha-1; factorVIII/von Willerbrand factor and factor IX, clotting factors for the treatment of hemophilia A and von Willebrand’s disease, as well as hemophilia B; antithrombin III to treat hereditary antithrombin deficiency; Fostamatinib, a spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor; combination of fibrinogen and enzyme thrombin that acts as a biological sealant to control surgical bleeding; and plasma exchange with albumin used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. It markets diagnostic testing equipment, reagents, and other equipment; biological products; manufactures and sells plasma to third parties; and involves in research activities, as well as markets pharmaceutical products for hospital pharmacies. In addition, the company offers Yimmugo PID, an immunology drug; and Yimmugo ITP, a hematology drug. Further, it develops Xembify Pre-filled syringes, FlexBag, and Prolastin vials; Xembify Biweekly dosing, Prolastin-C, Fostamatinib2, and VISTASEAL which are in Phase IV development stage; Xembify, Albumin 20% and 5%, Fibrinogen, Trimodulin, Cytotec pregnancy, and AMBAR-Next in Phase III development stage; and AKST4290 that is in Phase II clinical development. Additionally, it offers recIG, Alpha-1 AT in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, ATIII, GIGA 2339, GIGA564, and OSIG. It has collaboration agreements with Canadian Blood Services for the processing of other plasma-derived products and with GIANT; and GigaGen to develop recombinant polyclonal immunoglobulin therapies. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain.