Comparing AC Immune (ACIU) and Its Competitors

AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) is one of 844 publicly-traded companies in the “Biotechnology” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare AC Immune to similar companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for AC Immune and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AC Immune	1	1	3	0	2.40
AC Immune Competitors	9789	15058	45310	1572	2.54

AC Immune presently has a consensus price target of $7.50, indicating a potential upside of 258.85%. As a group, “Biotechnology” companies have a potential upside of 97.74%. Given AC Immune’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe AC Immune is more favorable than its peers.

Risk and Volatility

AC Immune has a beta of 1.64, indicating that its share price is 64% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AC Immune’s peers have a beta of 1.14, indicating that their average share price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AC Immune and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
AC Immune	$4.31 million	-$85.03 million	-3.87
AC Immune Competitors	$691.14 million	$10.43 million	-10.01

AC Immune’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than AC Immune. AC Immune is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AC Immune	-245.32%	-100.17%	-28.36%
AC Immune Competitors	-9,046.59%	-199.78%	-30.61%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

51.4% of AC Immune shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 47.9% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are owned by institutional investors. 4.6% of AC Immune shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of shares of all “Biotechnology” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

AC Immune Company Profile

AC Immune SA, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers, designs, and develops medicines and diagnostic products for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein misfolding. Its SupraAntigen and Morphomer platforms are designed to generate vaccines, antibodies, and small molecules, which selectively interact with misfolded proteins that are common in a range of neurodegenerative diseases. The company is developing Crenezumab, a humanized, conformation-specific monoclonal antibody, which is in Phase II clinical studies trial for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is also developing ACI-24, an anti-Abeta vaccine candidate that is in Phase II clinical study for AD, as well as completed Phase Ib clinical study for Down syndrome; ACI-35, an anti-Tau vaccine candidate that is in Phase Ib/2a clinical study; and Tau- positron emission tomography (PET) imaging tracer, which is in Phase II clinical study. In addition, the company is researching and developing small molecule Tau aggregation inhibitors for AD and NeuroOrphan indications. Further, it has discovery and preclinical stage molecules targeting range of neurodegenerative diseases, which include diagnostics targeting TDP-43, alpha-synuclein, and NLRP3. AC Immune SA has license agreements and collaborations with Genentech, Inc.; Biogen International GmbH; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Life Molecular Imaging SA; Eli Lilly and Company; and WuXi Biologics. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.