By otakuyassine3@gmail.com 
Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA – Get Free Report) and Adaptive Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADPT – Get Free Report) are both medical companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, earnings and institutional ownership.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Moderna and Adaptive Biotechnologies, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Moderna | 4 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 2.14 |
| Adaptive Biotechnologies | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2.75 |
Moderna presently has a consensus target price of $79.50, suggesting a potential upside of 96.64%. Adaptive Biotechnologies has a consensus target price of $6.75, suggesting a potential upside of 4.81%. Given Moderna’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Moderna is more favorable than Adaptive Biotechnologies.
Risk and Volatility
Moderna has a beta of 1.59, meaning that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adaptive Biotechnologies has a beta of 1.49, meaning that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares Moderna and Adaptive Biotechnologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Moderna | -43.77% | -17.68% | -13.35% |
| Adaptive Biotechnologies | -110.13% | -62.06% | -26.82% |
Insider & Institutional Ownership
75.3% of Moderna shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.2% of Adaptive Biotechnologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 15.2% of Moderna shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.2% of Adaptive Biotechnologies shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares Moderna and Adaptive Biotechnologies”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Moderna | $5.06 billion | 3.08 | -$4.71 billion | ($5.82) | -6.95 |
| Adaptive Biotechnologies | $177.28 million | 5.36 | -$225.25 million | ($1.34) | -4.81 |
Adaptive Biotechnologies has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Moderna. Moderna is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Adaptive Biotechnologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Moderna beats Adaptive Biotechnologies on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Moderna
Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company, discovers, develops, and commercializes messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases in the United States, Europe, and internationally. Its respiratory vaccines include COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, spikevax, and hMPV/PIV3 vaccines; latent vaccines comprise cytomegalovirus, epstein-barr virus, herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, and human immunodeficiency virus vaccines; public health vaccines consists of Zika, Nipah, Mpox vaccines; and infectious diseases vaccines, such as lyme and norovirus vaccines. The company also offers systemic secreted and cell surface therapeutics; cancer vaccines, such as personalized cancer, KRAS, and checkpoint vaccines; intratumoral immuno-oncology products; rare disease intracellular therapeutics; and inhaled pulmonary therapeutics. It has strategic alliances and collaborations with AstraZeneca; Merck & Co., Inc; Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated; Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Europe) Limited; Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A.; Metagenomi, Inc.; Carisma Therapeutics, Inc.; CytomX Therapeutics; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority; Institute for Life Changing Medicines; and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company was formerly known as Moderna Therapeutics, Inc. and changed its name to Moderna, Inc. in August 2018. Moderna, Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About Adaptive Biotechnologies
Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, a commercial-stage company, develops an immune medicine platform for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. The company offers immunosequencing platform which combines a suite of proprietary chemistry, computational biology, and machine learning to generate clinical immunomics data to decode the adaptive immune system. It also provides clonoSEQ diagnostic test which detects and monitors the remaining number of cancer cells that are present in a patient’s body during and after treatment, known as Minimal Residual Disease (MRD). The company offers products and services for life sciences research, clinical diagnostics, and drug discovery applications. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation has strategic collaborations with Genentech, Inc. for the development, manufacture, and commercialization of neoantigen directed T cell therapies for the treatment of a range of cancers; and Microsoft Corporation to develop diagnostic tests for the early detection of various diseases from a single blood test. The company was formerly known as Adaptive TCR Corporation and changed its name to Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation in December 2011. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
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