Head to Head Review: Vigil Neuroscience (NASDAQ:VIGL) & Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN)

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) and Vigil Neuroscience (NASDAQ:VIGL) are both medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Volatility and Risk

Amgen has a beta of 0.58, meaning that its stock price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vigil Neuroscience has a beta of 1.77, meaning that its stock price is 77% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Amgen shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.6% of Vigil Neuroscience shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Amgen shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 33.5% of Vigil Neuroscience shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Amgen and Vigil Neuroscience, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amgen	0	9	10	0	2.53
Vigil Neuroscience	1	0	3	0	2.50

Amgen presently has a consensus target price of $296.95, indicating a potential upside of 9.21%. Vigil Neuroscience has a consensus target price of $17.40, indicating a potential upside of 512.68%. Given Vigil Neuroscience’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Vigil Neuroscience is more favorable than Amgen.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Amgen and Vigil Neuroscience’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amgen	$28.19 billion	5.17	$6.72 billion	$12.49	21.77
Vigil Neuroscience	N/A	N/A	-$82.64 million	($2.13)	-1.33

Amgen has higher revenue and earnings than Vigil Neuroscience. Vigil Neuroscience is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Amgen, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Amgen and Vigil Neuroscience’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amgen	23.83%	154.27%	10.95%
Vigil Neuroscience	N/A	-57.26%	-49.50%

Summary

Amgen beats Vigil Neuroscience on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Amgen

Amgen Inc. discovers, develops, manufactures, and delivers human therapeutics worldwide. The company's principal products include Enbrel to treat plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis; Otezla for the treatment of adult patients with plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and oral ulcers associated with Behçet's disease; Prolia to treat postmenopausal women with osteoporosis; XGEVA for skeletal-related events prevention; Repatha, which reduces the risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, and coronary revascularization; Nplate for the treatment of patients with immune thrombocytopenia; KYPROLIS to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma; Aranesp to treat a lower-than-normal number of red blood cells and anemia; EVENITY for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal for men and women; Vectibix to treat patients with wild-type RAS metastatic colorectal cancer; BLINCYTO for the treatment of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia; TEPEZZA to treat thyroid eye disease; and KRYSTEXXA for the treatment of chronic refractory gout. It also markets other products, including Neulasta, MVASI, AMJEVITA/AMGEVITA, TEZSPIRE, Parsabiv, Aimovig, LUMAKRAS/LUMYKRAS, EPOGEN, KANJINTI, TAVNEOS, RAVICTI, UPLIZNA and PROCYSBI. The company serves healthcare providers, including physicians or their clinics, dialysis centers, hospitals, and pharmacies. It distributes its products through pharmaceutical wholesale distributors, as well as direct-to-consumer channels. The company has collaboration agreements with AstraZeneca plc for the development and commercialization of TEZSPIRE; Novartis Pharma AG to develop and commercialize Aimovig; UCB for the development and commercialization of EVENITY; Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. for rocatinlimab development and commercialization; and BeiGene, Ltd. for oncology products expansion and development. Amgen Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California.

About Vigil Neuroscience

Vigil Neuroscience, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, focuses on developing treatments for rare and common neurodegenerative diseases by restoring the vigilance of microglia, the sentinel immune cells of the brain. Its lead candidate is VGL101(Iluzanebart), a human monoclonal antibody agonist targeting human triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 and is in a Phase 2 trial in patients with adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP), a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease. The company is also developing VG-3927, an orally-available small molecule TREM2 agonist to treat common neurodegenerative diseases associated with microglial dysfunction, with an initial focus on Alzheimer's disease in genetically defined subpopulations, which is being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial. It has license agreement with Amgen Inc. to commercially develop, manufacture, use, distribute, and sell therapeutic products containing compounds that bind to TREM2. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts.