Critical Review: TriSalus Life Sciences (NASDAQ:TLSI) vs. Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN)

TriSalus Life Sciences (NASDAQ:TLSI) and Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and profitability.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

2.6% of TriSalus Life Sciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.4% of Valneva shares are held by institutional investors. 16.3% of TriSalus Life Sciences shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.9% of Valneva 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for TriSalus Life Sciences and Valneva, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TriSalus Life Sciences	1	1	2	0	2.25
Valneva	2	0	3	0	2.20

TriSalus Life Sciences presently has a consensus price target of $7.50, indicating a potential upside of 80.29%. Valneva has a consensus price target of $11.98, indicating a potential upside of 128.97%. Given Valneva’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Valneva is more favorable than TriSalus Life Sciences.

Profitability

This table compares TriSalus Life Sciences and Valneva’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TriSalus Life Sciences	-60.85%	N/A	-69.91%
Valneva	-88.87%	-107.63%	-33.02%

Volatility and Risk

TriSalus Life Sciences has a beta of 0.48, meaning that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Valneva has a beta of 1.75, meaning that its share price is 75% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares TriSalus Life Sciences and Valneva”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TriSalus Life Sciences	$45.15 million	5.66	-$39.23 million	($1.41)	-2.95
Valneva	$197.56 million	2.51	-$130.33 million	($1.87)	-2.80

TriSalus Life Sciences has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Valneva. TriSalus Life Sciences is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Valneva, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

About TriSalus Life Sciences

TriSalus Life Sciences, Inc., a medical technology company, researches, develops, and sells drug delivery technologies and immune-oncology therapeutics for the treatment of liver and pancreatic cancer. The company offers Pressure Enabled Drug Delivery infusion systems, such as the TriNav infusion system, which is used in transarterial radioembolization and chemoembolization procedures for patients with liver cancer and metastases; and the Pancreatic Retrograde Venous Infusion device, which is in Phase 1 clinical trial, for locally advanced pancreatic cancer. It also develops nelitolimod, an investigational immunotherapeutic in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of uveal melanoma with liver metastases, hepatocellular carcinoma, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and locally advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The company serves interventional radiologists, IR technicians, medical oncologists, nursing support, value analysis committee staff, and patients through its sales representatives and sales managers. TriSalus Life Sciences, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Westminster, Colorado.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine. The company also develops VLA15, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against Borrelia, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease; VLA1553, a vaccine candidate, which is in Phase III clinical trial against the chikungunya virus; VLA1554, a vaccine candidate targeting human metapneumovirus; and VLA2112, a vaccine candidate to treat patients with epstein-barr virus. It sells its products in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Nordics, the United Kingdom, France, rest of European countries, and internationally. Valneva SE has collaborations with Pfizer, Inc. to co-develop and commercialize its Lyme disease vaccine; and Instituto Butantan for the development, manufacturing, and marketing of single-shot chikungunya vaccine. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in Saint-Herblain, France.