Adagene (NASDAQ:ADAG) & Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ:SANA) Head-To-Head Review

Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ:SANA) and Adagene (NASDAQ:ADAG) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

88.2% of Sana Biotechnology shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.5% of Adagene shares are held by institutional investors. 25.4% of Sana Biotechnology shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 21.2% of Adagene shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Sana Biotechnology and Adagene”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sana Biotechnology	N/A	N/A	-$244.17 million	($0.76)	-5.04
Adagene	$7.67 million	31.35	-$17.61 million	N/A	N/A

Adagene has higher revenue and earnings than Sana Biotechnology.

Volatility and Risk

Sana Biotechnology has a beta of 2.12, indicating that its stock price is 112% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adagene has a beta of 0.56, indicating that its stock price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Sana Biotechnology and Adagene, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sana Biotechnology	1	1	7	1	2.80
Adagene	1	0	1	1	2.67

Sana Biotechnology currently has a consensus target price of $9.33, suggesting a potential upside of 143.69%. Adagene has a consensus target price of $10.00, suggesting a potential upside of 174.73%. Given Adagene’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Adagene is more favorable than Sana Biotechnology.

Profitability

This table compares Sana Biotechnology and Adagene’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sana Biotechnology	N/A	-103.02%	-39.16%
Adagene	N/A	N/A	N/A

About Sana Biotechnology

Sana Biotechnology, Inc., a biotechnology company, focuses on utilizing engineered cells as medicines. It develops ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms for various therapeutic areas with unmet treatment needs, including oncology, diabetes, central nervous system disorders, B-cell-mediated autoimmune, and others. The company’s product candidates include SC291 that is used as allogeneic cell therapies for hematologic malignancies; ARDENT for a potential treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and chronic lymphoblastic leukemia; GLEAM, to treat multiple autoimmune disorders that involve production of autoimmune antibodies, including lupus nephritis, extrarenal lupus, antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody -associated vasculitis, and others. It is developing SC262 to treat patients with relapsed and/or refractory B-cell malignancies; SC255 for multiple myeloma treatment; SC379, a therapy for patients with certain central nervous system disorders healthy allogeneic glial progenitor cells; SC451, a product candidate to treat diabetes, with an initial focus on type 1 diabetes mellitus; and UP421 that reduces long-term exogenous insulin dependence. The company has an option and license agreement with Beam Therapeutics Inc. for use of Beam’s proprietary CRISPR Cas12b nuclease editing technology to research, develop, and commercialize engineered cell therapy products; and a license agreement with Harvard College to access certain intellectual property for the development of hypoimmune-modified cells. The company was formerly known as FD Therapeutics, Inc. and changed its name to Sana Biotechnology, Inc. in September 2018. Sana Biotechnology, Inc. was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Adagene

Adagene Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company, engages in the research, development, and production of monoclonal antibody drugs for cancers. The company's product candidates include ADG106, a human ligand-blocking agonistic anti- CD137 IgG4 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that is in Phase 1b/2 clinical trials for the treatment advanced solid tumors and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; ADG126, a masked fully-human anti-CTLA-4 mAb that is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment advanced/metastatic solid tumors; and ADG116, a human ligand-blocking anti-CTLA-4 mAb, which is in Phase 1b/2 clinical development for the treatment of advanced/metastatic solid tumors. It also offers ADG104, an anti-PD-L1 mAb that is in Phase 2 clinical development; ADG125, a novel anti-CSF-1R mAb, which is in Phase I clinical trial; ADG206, a masked, Fc engineered anti-CD137 agonistic POWERbody; ADG153, a masked anti-CD47 IgG1 SAFEbody, which is in preclinical for the treatment hematologic and solid tumors; ADG138, novel HER2xCD3 POWERbody, which is in preclinical for the treatment HER2-expressing solid tumors; and ADG152, a v POWERbody, which is in preclinical stage for the treatment off-tumor toxicities, as well as develops anti-CD28 bispecific POWERbody TCEs. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Suzhou, China.