Castle Biosciences (NASDAQ:CSTL – Get Rating) and Sera Prognostics (NASDAQ:SERA – Get Rating) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
86.1% of Castle Biosciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 31.4% of Sera Prognostics shares are held by institutional investors. 7.3% of Castle Biosciences shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.6% of Sera Prognostics shares 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.
Get Castle Biosciences alerts:Risk & Volatility
Castle Biosciences has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sera Prognostics has a beta of 0.65, suggesting that its stock price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings for Castle Biosciences and Sera Prognostics, as provided by MarketBeat.com.| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Castle Biosciences | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3.00 |
| Sera Prognostics | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2.75 |
Castle Biosciences currently has a consensus target price of $57.86, suggesting a potential upside of 174.59%. Sera Prognostics has a consensus target price of $6.25, suggesting a potential upside of 373.48%. Given Sera Prognostics' higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Sera Prognostics is more favorable than Castle Biosciences.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Castle Biosciences and Sera Prognostics' revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Castle Biosciences | $94.08 million | 5.90 | -$31.29 million | ($2.05) | -10.28 |
| Sera Prognostics | $80,000.00 | 511.78 | -$35.01 million | ($1.53) | -0.86 |
Castle Biosciences has higher revenue and earnings than Sera Prognostics. Castle Biosciences is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Sera Prognostics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Castle Biosciences and Sera Prognostics' net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Castle Biosciences | -42.79% | -11.87% | -10.69% |
| Sera Prognostics | -20,490.83% | -38.32% | -35.85% |
Summary
Castle Biosciences beats Sera Prognostics on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Castle Biosciences
(Get Rating)
Castle Biosciences, Inc., a commercial-stage diagnostics company, focuses to provide diagnostic and prognostic testing services for dermatological cancers. Its lead product is DecisionDx-Melanoma, a multi-gene expression profile (GEP) test to identify the risk of metastasis for patients diagnosed with invasive cutaneous melanoma. The company also offers DecisionDx-UM test, a proprietary GEP test that predicts the risk of metastasis for patients with uveal melanoma, a rare eye cancer; DecisionDx-SCC, a proprietary 40-gene expression profile test that uses an individual patient's tumor biology to predict individual risk of squamous cell carcinoma metastasis for patients with one or more risk factors; and DecisionDx DiffDx-Melanoma and myPath Melanoma, a proprietary GEP test to diagnose suspicious pigmented lesions. It offers test services through physicians and their patients. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Friendswood, Texas.
About Sera Prognostics
(Get Rating)
Sera Prognostics, Inc., a women's health diagnostic company, discovers, develops, and commercializes biomarker tests for improving pregnancy outcomes. The company develops PreTRM test, a blood-based biomarker test to predict the risk of spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic singleton pregnancies. It is also developing a portfolio of product candidates for various pregnancy-related conditions, including preeclampsia, molecular time-to-birth, gestational diabetes mellitus, fetal growth restriction, stillbirth, and postpartum depression. The company was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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