Head to Head Comparison: Neogen (NASDAQ:NEOG) vs. Cresco Labs (OTCMKTS:CRLBF)

Cresco Labs (OTCMKTS:CRLBF) and Neogen (NASDAQ:NEOG) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.1% of Cresco Labs shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.7% of Neogen shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Neogen shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Cresco Labs and Neogen”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cresco Labs	$655.85 million	0.51	-$135.41 million	($0.39)	-2.38
Neogen	$894.66 million	2.03	-$1.09 billion	($2.77)	-3.02

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

Volatility & Risk

Cresco Labs has a beta of 1.47, suggesting that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Neogen has a beta of 1.95, suggesting that its share price is 95% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Cresco Labs and Neogen’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cresco Labs	-20.65%	-16.61%	-4.25%
Neogen	-68.47%	2.14%	1.35%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Cresco Labs and Neogen, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cresco Labs	1	0	0	1	2.50
Neogen	1	3	2	0	2.17

Neogen has a consensus price target of $10.67, suggesting a potential upside of 27.59%. Given Neogen’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Neogen is more favorable than Cresco Labs.

Summary

Neogen beats Cresco Labs on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cresco Labs

Cresco Labs Inc., together with its subsidiaries, cultivates, manufactures, and sells retail and medical cannabis products in the United States. It provides cannabis in flowers, vape pens, live resins, disposable pens, and extracts under the Cresco brand; vape carts, vape pens, flower, popcorn, shake, pre-rolls, shorties, and concentrates under the High Supply brand; vapes and gummies under the Good News brand; vapes and edibles under the Wonder Wellness Co. brand; and tinctures, capsules, salves, and sublingual oils under the Remedi brand. The company also offers cannabis flowers under the FloraCal brand; and chocolate and toffee confections and fruit-forward gummies under the Mindy's Edibles brand, as well as licenses the Kiva brand, which produces cannabis infused edibles, including chocolate confections, gummies, mints, and tarts. In addition, the company offers cannabis-infused edibles under the Sunnyside brand. The company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Neogen

Neogen Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of various products and services dedicated to food and animal safety worldwide. It operates through two segments, Food Safety and Animal Safety. The Food Safety segment offers diagnostic test kits and related products to detect dangerous and unintended substances in food and animal feed, including foodborne pathogens, spoilage organisms, natural toxins, food allergens, genetic modifications, ruminant by-products, meat speciation, drug residues, pesticide residues, and general sanitation concerns; and AccuPoint Advanced rapid sanitation test to detect the presence of adenosine triphosphate, a chemical found in living cells, as well as provides genomics-based diagnostic technology and software systems that help testers to objectively analyze and store their results and perform analysis on the results from multiple locations over extended periods. The segment offers its products primarily to milling and grain, meat and poultry, prepared foods and ingredients, fruits and vegetables, seafood, dairy, beverage, water, healthcare, traditional culture media markets, food service, and dietary supplements markets. The Animal Safety segment provides veterinary instruments, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, topicals, parasiticides, diagnostic products, rodent control products, cleaners, disinfectants, insect control products, and genomics testing services marketed through veterinarians, retailers, livestock producers, and animal health product distributors, for the animal safety market. The segment offers its products for companion animal veterinarians; livestock producers, veterinarians, and breed associations; retailers; breeding and genetics companies; diagnostic labs and universities; distributors; and other manufacturers and government agencies. Neogen Corporation was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Lansing, Michigan.