Reviewing AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) and Cytek Biosciences (NASDAQ:CTKB)

Cytek Biosciences (NASDAQ:CTKB) and AC Immune (NASDAQ:ACIU) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, risk, dividends and earnings.

Risk and Volatility

Cytek Biosciences has a beta of 1.18, meaning that its share price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AC Immune has a beta of 1.59, meaning that its share price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Cytek Biosciences and AC Immune, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cytek Biosciences	1	2	3	0	2.33
AC Immune	1	1	2	0	2.25

Cytek Biosciences presently has a consensus price target of $5.69, suggesting a potential upside of 37.71%. AC Immune has a consensus price target of $7.50, suggesting a potential upside of 231.86%. Given AC Immune’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe AC Immune is more favorable than Cytek Biosciences.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Cytek Biosciences and AC Immune”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cytek Biosciences	$204.17 million	2.61	-$66.54 million	($0.57)	-7.25
AC Immune	$4.31 million	53.36	-$85.03 million	($0.82)	-2.76

Cytek Biosciences has higher revenue and earnings than AC Immune. Cytek Biosciences is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AC Immune, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Cytek Biosciences and AC Immune’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cytek Biosciences	-36.25%	-10.07%	-7.56%
AC Immune	-1,788.02%	-125.26%	-40.85%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

69.5% of Cytek Biosciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.4% of AC Immune shares are held by institutional investors. 10.4% of Cytek Biosciences shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.6% of AC Immune shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Cytek Biosciences beats AC Immune on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cytek Biosciences

Cytek Biosciences, Inc., a cell analysis solutions company, provides cell analysis tools that facilitates scientific advances in biomedical research and clinical applications. It offers aurora and northern lights systems, which are spectrum flow cytometers that delivers cell analysis by utilizing the fluorescence signatures from multiple lasers to distinguish fluorescent tags on single cells; and aurora cell sorter system that leverages full spectrum profiling technology to further broaden potential applications across cell analysis; aurora CS systems; amnis imagestream imaging flow cytometers; guava muse cell analyzers; guava easycyte flow cytometers; and orion reagent cocktail preparation systems. The company also provides reagents and kits, including cFluor reagents that are fluorochrome conjugated antibodies used to identify cells of interest for analysis on its instruments, as well as 25-color immunoprofiling assay that provides turnkey solutions for identifying major human immune subpopulations for TBNK cells, monocytes, dendritic cells, and basophils. In addition, it offers automated micro-sampling system and automated sample loader system, an automated loaders to integrate seamlessly into the aurora and northern lights systems; SpectroFlo software that provides intuitive workflow from quality control to data analysis for aurora and northern lights systems; and customer support tools. The company serves pharmaceutical and biopharma companies, academic research centers, and clinical research organizations. It distributes its products through direct sales force and support organizations in North America, Europe, China, and the Asia-Pacific regions; and through distributors or sales agents in European, Latin American, and the Middle Eastern countries. The company was formerly known as Cytoville, Inc. and changed its name to Cytek Biosciences, Inc. in August 2015. Cytek Biosciences, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.

About AC Immune

AC Immune SA, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers, designs, and develops medicines and diagnostic products for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein misfolding. Its SupraAntigen and Morphomer platforms are designed to generate vaccines, antibodies, and small molecules, which selectively interact with misfolded proteins that are common in a range of neurodegenerative diseases. The company is developing Crenezumab, a humanized, conformation-specific monoclonal antibody, which is in Phase II clinical studies trial for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is also developing ACI-24, an anti-Abeta vaccine candidate that is in Phase II clinical study for AD, as well as completed Phase Ib clinical study for Down syndrome; ACI-35, an anti-Tau vaccine candidate that is in Phase Ib/2a clinical study; and Tau- positron emission tomography (PET) imaging tracer, which is in Phase II clinical study. In addition, the company is researching and developing small molecule Tau aggregation inhibitors for AD and NeuroOrphan indications. Further, it has discovery and preclinical stage molecules targeting range of neurodegenerative diseases, which include diagnostics targeting TDP-43, alpha-synuclein, and NLRP3. AC Immune SA has license agreements and collaborations with Genentech, Inc.; Biogen International GmbH; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Life Molecular Imaging SA; Eli Lilly and Company; and WuXi Biologics. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.