Prime Medicine (NYSE:PRME – Get Free Report) and Scilex (NASDAQ:SCLX – Get Free Report) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.
Volatility and Risk
Prime Medicine has a beta of 2.18, meaning that its stock price is 118% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Scilex has a beta of 1.17, meaning that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Ratings
This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Prime Medicine and Scilex, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Prime Medicine | 0 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 2.90 |
| Scilex | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3.00 |
Insider and Institutional Ownership
70.4% of Prime Medicine shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.7% of Scilex shares are held by institutional investors. 24.3% of Prime Medicine shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 8.7% of Scilex shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares Prime Medicine and Scilex”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Prime Medicine | $591,000.00 | 702.72 | -$198.13 million | ($2.17) | -1.59 |
| Scilex | $46.74 million | 3.86 | -$114.33 million | ($1.31) | -0.72 |
Scilex has higher revenue and earnings than Prime Medicine. Prime Medicine is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Scilex, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Prime Medicine and Scilex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Prime Medicine | N/A | -106.30% | -81.24% |
| Scilex | -233.88% | N/A | -111.82% |
About Prime Medicine
Prime Medicine, Inc., a biotechnology company, delivers genetic therapies to address the spectrum of diseases by deploying gene editing technology. The company offers Prime Editors with a Prime Editor protein, comprising a fusion between a Cas protein and a reverse transcriptase enzyme; and a pegRNA, which targets the Prime Editor to a specific genomic location and provides a template for making the desired edit to the target DNA sequence. It has a research collaboration with Cimeio Therapeutics to develop Prime Edited Shielded-Cell & Immunotherapy Pairs for genetic diseases, acute myeloid leukemia, and myelodysplastic syndrome. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About Scilex
Scilex Holding Company focuses on acquiring, developing, and commercializing non-opioid pain management products for the treatment of acute and chronic pain. Its commercial products include ZTlido (lidocaine topical system) 1.8% (ZTlido), a prescription lidocaine topical product for the relief of neuropathic pain associated with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), which is a form of post-shingles nerve pain; ELYXYB, a ready-to-use oral solution for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults; and GLOPERBA, a liquid oral version of the anti-gout medicine colchicine indicated for the prophylaxis of painful gout flares in adults. The company is also developing three product candidates, including SP-102 (10 mg dexamethasone sodium phosphate viscous gel) (SEMDEXA), a novel viscous gel formulation of a used corticosteroid for epidural injections, which has completed a Phase 3 study to treat lumbosacral radicular pain or sciatica; SP-103 (lidocaine topical system) 5.4% (SP-103), a formulation of ZTlido for the treatment of chronic neck pain and low back pain (LBP) that has completed a Phase 2 trial; and SP-104 (4.5 mg low-dose naltrexone hydrochloride delayed-release capsules) (SP-104), a novel low-dose delayed-release naltrexone hydrochloride, which has completed Phase 1 trials for the treatment of fibromyalgia. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
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