Head-To-Head Review: Lifecore Biomedical (NASDAQ:LFCR) & Adagene (NASDAQ:ADAG)

Lifecore Biomedical (NASDAQ:LFCR) and Adagene (NASDAQ:ADAG) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Lifecore Biomedical and Adagene, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lifecore Biomedical	2	1	1	0	1.75
Adagene	1	0	2	2	3.00

Lifecore Biomedical currently has a consensus price target of $6.50, indicating a potential upside of 38.15%. Adagene has a consensus price target of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 114.53%. Given Adagene’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Adagene is more favorable than Lifecore Biomedical.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

83.4% of Lifecore Biomedical shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.5% of Adagene shares are held by institutional investors. 32.7% of Lifecore Biomedical shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 21.2% of Adagene shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Lifecore Biomedical and Adagene’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lifecore Biomedical	-25.43%	N/A	-14.40%
Adagene	N/A	N/A	N/A

Risk and Volatility

Lifecore Biomedical has a beta of 1.06, suggesting that its share price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adagene has a beta of 0.58, suggesting that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Lifecore Biomedical and Adagene”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lifecore Biomedical	$128.87 million	1.37	-$35.26 million	($0.94)	-5.01
Adagene	$7.67 million	23.04	-$17.61 million	N/A	N/A

Adagene has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lifecore Biomedical.

Summary

Adagene beats Lifecore Biomedical on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lifecore Biomedical

Lifecore Biomedical, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated contract development and manufacturing organization in the United States and internationally. The company engages in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical-grade sodium hyaluronate (HA) in bulk form, as well as formulated and filled syringes and vials for injectable products used in treating a range of medical conditions and procedures. It also provides services, such as technology development, material component changes, analytical method development, formulation development, pilot studies, stability studies, process validation, and production of materials for clinical studies to its partners for HA-based and non-HA based aseptically formulated and filled products. The company was formerly known as Landec Corporation and changed its name to Lifecore Biomedical, Inc. in November 2022. Lifecore Biomedical, Inc. was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Chaska, Minnesota.

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.