Eloxx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ELOX) & Scilex (NASDAQ:SCLX) Financial Comparison

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ELOX) and Scilex (NASDAQ:SCLX) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and risk.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Eloxx Pharmaceuticals and Scilex’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Eloxx Pharmaceuticals	N/A	N/A	-$36.06 million	($9.07)	-0.09
Scilex	$47.05 million	4.43	-$114.33 million	($1.31)	-0.88

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Scilex. Scilex is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Eloxx Pharmaceuticals and Scilex, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Eloxx Pharmaceuticals	0	0	0	0	N/A
Scilex	0	0	2	0	3.00

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals currently has a consensus price target of $55.00, indicating a potential upside of 6,563.03%. Scilex has a consensus price target of $6.00, indicating a potential upside of 421.74%. Given Eloxx Pharmaceuticals’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Eloxx Pharmaceuticals is more favorable than Scilex.

Risk and Volatility

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 2.71, indicating that its stock price is 171% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Scilex has a beta of 0.91, indicating that its stock price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Eloxx Pharmaceuticals and Scilex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Eloxx Pharmaceuticals	N/A	N/A	-203.00%
Scilex	-229.47%	N/A	-106.29%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

2.9% of Eloxx Pharmaceuticals shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.7% of Scilex shares are held by institutional investors. 20.2% of Eloxx Pharmaceuticals shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 8.7% of Scilex 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.

Summary

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals beats Scilex on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Eloxx Pharmaceuticals

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing ribosome modulation for the treatment of rare and ultra-rare premature stop codon diseases. Its lead investigational drug product candidate is ELX-02, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of cystic fibrosis and nephropathic cystinosis patients with diagnosed nonsense mutations. The company also develops various preclinical programs for the treatment of alport syndrome, recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, junctional epidermolysis bullosa, and familial adenomatous polyposis, as well as various earlier discovery stage programs in oncology. Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts.

About Scilex

Scilex Holding Company focuses on acquiring, developing, and commercializing non-opioid pain management products for the treatment of acute and chronic pain. Its commercial products include ZTlido (lidocaine topical system) 1.8% (ZTlido), a prescription lidocaine topical product for the relief of neuropathic pain associated with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), which is a form of post-shingles nerve pain; ELYXYB, a ready-to-use oral solution for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults; and GLOPERBA, a liquid oral version of the anti-gout medicine colchicine indicated for the prophylaxis of painful gout flares in adults. The company is also developing three product candidates, including SP-102 (10 mg dexamethasone sodium phosphate viscous gel) (SEMDEXA), a novel viscous gel formulation of a used corticosteroid for epidural injections, which has completed a Phase 3 study to treat lumbosacral radicular pain or sciatica; SP-103 (lidocaine topical system) 5.4% (SP-103), a formulation of ZTlido for the treatment of chronic neck pain and low back pain (LBP) that has completed a Phase 2 trial; and SP-104 (4.5 mg low-dose naltrexone hydrochloride delayed-release capsules) (SP-104), a novel low-dose delayed-release naltrexone hydrochloride, which has completed Phase 1 trials for the treatment of fibromyalgia. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.