Analyzing Surrozen (NASDAQ:SRZN) & Galmed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GLMD)

Galmed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GLMD) and Surrozen (NASDAQ:SRZN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation, earnings, dividends and profitability.

Profitability

This table compares Galmed Pharmaceuticals and Surrozen’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Galmed Pharmaceuticals	N/A	-20.37%	-18.16%
Surrozen	-2,909.10%	-4,055.04%	-88.90%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Galmed Pharmaceuticals and Surrozen, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Galmed Pharmaceuticals	1	1	0	0	1.50
Surrozen	1	0	1	1	2.67

Surrozen has a consensus price target of $32.00, suggesting a potential upside of 30.72%. Given Surrozen’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Surrozen is more favorable than Galmed Pharmaceuticals.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

76.1% of Galmed Pharmaceuticals shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 66.6% of Surrozen shares are held by institutional investors. 19.8% of Galmed Pharmaceuticals shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 43.5% of Surrozen shares are held by company 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.

Volatility and Risk

Galmed Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.4, meaning that its share price is 60% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Surrozen has a beta of 0.58, meaning that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Galmed Pharmaceuticals and Surrozen”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Galmed Pharmaceuticals	N/A	N/A	-$7.52 million	($0.32)	-1.92
Surrozen	$10.65 million	19.70	-$63.56 million	($22.34)	-1.10

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

Summary

Surrozen beats Galmed Pharmaceuticals on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Galmed Pharmaceuticals

Galmed Pharmaceuticals Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of therapeutics for the treatment of liver diseases. It develops Aramchol, an oral therapy, which is in Phase III study for the treatment of non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis (NASH) in patients with overweight or obesity and who are pre-diabetic or type-II-diabetes mellitus. The company also evaluates Aramchol through ARRIVE Study, a Phase IIa clinical trial with HIV-associated non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and lipodystrophy. In addition, it engages in the development of Amilo-5MER, a 5 amino acid synthetic peptide methionine, threonine, alanine, aspartic acid, and valine. It has a license agreement with Samil Pharma. Co., Ltd. for the commercialization of Aramchol in the Republic of Korea; and a collaboration agreement with OnKai for its AI platform. Galmed Pharmaceuticals Ltd. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

About Surrozen

Surrozen, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company, discovers and develops drug candidates to selectively modulate the Wnt pathway for tissue repair. The company is developing antibody-based therapeutics which targets various disease areas, including diseases of the intestine, liver, retina, cornea, lung, kidney, cochlea, skin, pancreas, and central nervous system. Its products in pipeline include SZN-043, a hepatocyte-specific R-spondin mimetic bispecific fusion protein, which is in Phase 1b clinical trial for the treatment of severe liver diseases, including alcohol-associated hepatitis. The company develops SZN-413, a Fzd4 targeted bi-specific antibody for the treatment of retinal vascular associated diseases. Surrozen, Inc. has collaboration and license agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH to research, develop, and commercialize Fzd4 bi-specific antibodies. Surrozen, Inc. is based in South San Francisco, California.