Reviewing Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI) and MBX Biosciences (NYSE:MBX)

MBX Biosciences (NYSE:MBX) and Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings and institutional ownership.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares MBX Biosciences and Maravai LifeSciences”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MBX Biosciences	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Maravai LifeSciences	$288.95 million	3.72	-$119.03 million	($1.64)	-2.60

MBX Biosciences has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Maravai LifeSciences.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

50.3% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.6% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares MBX Biosciences and Maravai LifeSciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MBX Biosciences	N/A	N/A	N/A
Maravai LifeSciences	-81.13%	-6.61%	-3.45%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for MBX Biosciences and Maravai LifeSciences, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MBX Biosciences	0	0	4	0	3.00
Maravai LifeSciences	1	5	5	0	2.36

MBX Biosciences presently has a consensus target price of $37.25, indicating a potential upside of 312.97%. Maravai LifeSciences has a consensus target price of $10.28, indicating a potential upside of 141.34%. Given MBX Biosciences’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe MBX Biosciences is more favorable than Maravai LifeSciences.

Summary

MBX Biosciences beats Maravai LifeSciences on 5 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About MBX Biosciences

MBX Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery and development of precision peptide therapies for the treatment of endocrine and metabolic disorders. Its lead product candidate is MBX 2109, a parathyroid hormone peptide prodrug, which is in Phase 2 clinical trial designed as a potential long-acting hormone replacement therapy for the treatment of chronic hypoparathyroidism. The company is also developing MBX 1416, a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor antagonist that is in Phase 1 clinical trial designed as a potential therapy for post-bariatric hypoglycemia, a chronic complication of bariatric surgery. In addition, it is developing MBX 4291, a lead obesity product candidate, which is in investigational new drug-enabling studies designed as a long-acting and highly potent GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor co-agonist prodrug for treating obesity and co-morbidities. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in Carmel, Indiana.

About Maravai LifeSciences

Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc., a life sciences company, provides products to enable the development of drug therapies, diagnostics, novel vaccines, and support research on human diseases worldwide. The company’s products address the key phases of biopharmaceutical development and include nucleic acids for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, antibody-based products to detect impurities during the production of biopharmaceutical products, and products to detect the expression of proteins in tissues of various species. It operates in two segments, Nucleic Acid Production and Biologics Safety Testing. The Nucleic Acid Production segment manufactures and sells products for use in the fields of gene therapy, vaccines, nucleoside chemistry, oligonucleotide therapy, and molecular diagnostics, including reagents used in the chemical synthesis, modification, labelling, and purification of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). This segment also offers messenger RNA, oligonucleotides, and oligonucleotide building blocks, as well as custom enzyme development and manufacturing and CleanCap capping technology. The Biologics Safety Testing segment sells analytical products for use in biologic manufacturing process development, including custom product-specific development antibody, and assay development services. This segment also provides HCP ELISA kits, other bioprocess impurity and contaminant ELISA kits, ancillary reagents, viral clearance prediction kits, and custom services. The company serves biopharmaceutical companies, and other biopharmaceutical and life sciences research companies; and academic research institutions and in vitro diagnostics companies. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.