Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) and Arbutus Biopharma (NASDAQ:ABUS) Critical Contrast

Arbutus Biopharma (NASDAQ:ABUS) and Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and dividends.

Risk & Volatility

Arbutus Biopharma has a beta of 0.76, suggesting that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Intellia Therapeutics has a beta of 1.8, suggesting that its stock price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Arbutus Biopharma and Intellia Therapeutics, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Arbutus Biopharma	0	1	1	0	2.50
Intellia Therapeutics	5	8	9	1	2.26

Arbutus Biopharma currently has a consensus price target of $5.00, suggesting a potential upside of 19.05%. Intellia Therapeutics has a consensus price target of $20.72, suggesting a potential upside of 84.81%. Given Intellia Therapeutics’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Intellia Therapeutics is more favorable than Arbutus Biopharma.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

43.8% of Arbutus Biopharma shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 88.8% of Intellia Therapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. 19.9% of Arbutus Biopharma shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.5% of Intellia Therapeutics shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Arbutus Biopharma and Intellia Therapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Arbutus Biopharma	84.22%	90.98%	82.34%
Intellia Therapeutics	-672.16%	-57.79%	-47.29%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Arbutus Biopharma and Intellia Therapeutics”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Arbutus Biopharma	$181.72 million	4.58	-$33.50 million	$0.79	5.32
Intellia Therapeutics	$59.51 million	26.40	-$412.69 million	($3.36)	-3.34

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

Summary

Arbutus Biopharma beats Intellia Therapeutics on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Arbutus Biopharma

Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, develops novel therapeutics for chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in the United States. Its HBV product pipeline consists of imdusiran (AB-729), a proprietary subcutaneously-delivered RNAi therapeutic product candidate that suppresses all HBV antigens, including HBsAg expression. The company’s research and development programs include AB-101, an oral PD-L1 inhibitor to reawaken patients’ HBV-specific immune system; and small molecule antiviral medicines to treat coronaviruses, including COVID-19. It has licensing agreements with Gritstone Oncology, Inc; Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Qilu Pharmaceuticals Co, Ltd; Assembly Biosciences, Inc.; Acuitas Therapeutics, Inc.; and Antios Therapeutics, Inc. Arbutus Biopharma Corporation also has a clinical collaboration agreement with Barinthus Biotherapeutics plc to evaluate VTP-300. The company was formerly known as Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation and changed its name to Arbutus Biopharma Corporation in July 2015. Arbutus Biopharma Corporation is headquartered in Warminster, Pennsylvania.

About Intellia Therapeutics

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc., a genome editing company, focuses on the development of curative therapeutics. The company's in vivo programs include NTLA-2001, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; NTLA-2002 for the treatment of hereditary angioedema; and NTLA-3001 for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency associated lung disease. It also focusses on programs comprising hemophilia A and hemophilia B; and research of proprietary programs focused on developing engineered cell therapies to treat various cancers and autoimmune diseases. In addition, the company offers tools comprising of Clustered, Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system. It has license and collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to co-develop potential products for the treatment of hemophilia A and hemophilia B; AvenCell Therapeutics, Inc. to develop allogeneic universal CAR-T cell therapies, and co-develop and co-commercialize allogeneic universal CAR-T cell products for an immuno-oncology indication; SparingVision SAS to develop novel genomic medicines utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 technology for the treatment of ocular diseases; Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc. for the development of an allogeneic CD19 CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of a variety of B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases; and ONK Therapeutics, Ltd. for the development of engineered NK cell therapies to cure patients with cancer. Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.