Analyzing Cytosorbents (CTSO) and The Competition

Cytosorbents (NASDAQ:CTSO) is one of 511 publicly-traded companies in the “Healthcare Equipment & Supplies” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Cytosorbents to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Cytosorbents and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cytosorbents	1	1	2	0	2.25
Cytosorbents Competitors	4242	10452	18159	819	2.46

Cytosorbents currently has a consensus price target of $74.83, suggesting a potential upside of 1,328.12%. As a group, “Healthcare Equipment & Supplies” companies have a potential upside of 21.46%. Given Cytosorbents’ higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Cytosorbents is more favorable than its peers.

Valuation & Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cytosorbents	$37.22 million	-$8.20 million	-0.90
Cytosorbents Competitors	$1.89 billion	$138.15 million	11.14

Cytosorbents’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Cytosorbents. Cytosorbents 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.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cytosorbents	-48.94%	-431.65%	-41.94%
Cytosorbents Competitors	-278.47%	-150.38%	-22.01%

Risk and Volatility

Cytosorbents has a beta of 1.37, suggesting that its share price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cytosorbents’ peers have a beta of 2.51, suggesting that their average share price is 151% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

32.9% of Cytosorbents shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.6% of shares of all “Healthcare Equipment & Supplies” companies are held by institutional investors. 7.8% of Cytosorbents shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.9% of shares of all “Healthcare Equipment & Supplies” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Cytosorbents peers beat Cytosorbents on 11 of the 13 factors compared.

About Cytosorbents

Cytosorbents Corporation engages in the research, development, and commercialization of medical devices with its blood purification technology platform incorporating a proprietary adsorbent and porous polymer technology in the United States, Germany, and internationally. Its flagship product is CytoSorb, an extracorporeal cytokine adsorber for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis, adjunctive therapy in other critical care applications, prevention, and treatment of perioperative complications, and maintaining or enhancing the quality of solid organs harvested from donors for organ transplant; and offers VetResQ, a device for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis, pancreatitis, and other critical illnesses in animals. The company also develops CytoSorb-XL, a device for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis and other critical illnesses; HemoDefend blood purification technology platform to reduce contaminants in the blood supply that can cause transfusion reactions or disease when administering blood and blood products to patients, and removal of anti-A and anti-B blood group antibodies from whole blood and plasma; K+ontrol for treatment of severe hyperkalemia in patients with life-threatening conditions; and ContrastSorb for the removal of IV contrast in blood administered during CT imaging, an angiogram, or during a vascular interventional radiology procedure to reduce the risk of contrast-induced nephropathy. In addition, it develops BetaSorb, a device for the prevention and treatment of health complications caused by the accumulation of metabolic toxins in patients with chronic renal failure; DrugSorb, a device to remove drugs and chemicals from the blood; and DrugSorb-ATR, an antithrombotic removal system. The company was formerly known as MedaSorb Technologies Corporation and changed its name to Cytosorbents Corporation in May 2010. Cytosorbents Corporation was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.