Critical Review: Presbia (OTCMKTS:LENSF) versus Cytosorbents (NASDAQ:CTSO)

Presbia (OTCMKTS:LENSF) and Cytosorbents (NASDAQ:CTSO) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.

Volatility & Risk

Presbia has a beta of 5.91, suggesting that its share price is 491% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cytosorbents has a beta of 0.57, suggesting that its share price is 43% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Presbia and Cytosorbents, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Presbia	0	0	0	0	0.00
Cytosorbents	0	1	1	1	3.00

Cytosorbents has a consensus target price of $2.00, indicating a potential upside of 112.79%. Given Cytosorbents’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Cytosorbents is more favorable than Presbia.

Profitability

This table compares Presbia and Cytosorbents’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Presbia	N/A	N/A	N/A
Cytosorbents	-49.47%	-118.54%	-42.31%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

32.9% of Cytosorbents shares are owned by institutional investors. 74.2% of Presbia shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 6.6% of Cytosorbents shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Presbia and Cytosorbents”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Presbia	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Cytosorbents	$33.79 million	1.52	-$28.51 million	($0.36)	-2.61

Presbia has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Cytosorbents.

Summary

Cytosorbents beats Presbia on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Presbia

Presbia PLC, an ophthalmic device company, develops and markets optical lens implants for treating presbyopia. The company provides the refractive lens for patient surgeries, as well as accessories for procedures. It primarily operates in the United States, South Korea, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, and Germany. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

About Cytosorbents

Cytosorbents Corporation engages in the research, development, and commercialization of medical devices with its blood purification technology platform incorporating a proprietary adsorbent and porous polymer technology in the United States, Germany, and internationally. Its flagship product is CytoSorb, an extracorporeal cytokine adsorber for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis, adjunctive therapy in other critical care applications, prevention, and treatment of perioperative complications, and maintaining or enhancing the quality of solid organs harvested from donors for organ transplant; and offers VetResQ, a device for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis, pancreatitis, and other critical illnesses in animals. The company also develops CytoSorb-XL, a device for adjunctive therapy in the treatment of sepsis and other critical illnesses; HemoDefend blood purification technology platform to reduce contaminants in the blood supply that can cause transfusion reactions or disease when administering blood and blood products to patients, and removal of anti-A and anti-B blood group antibodies from whole blood and plasma; K+ontrol for treatment of severe hyperkalemia in patients with life-threatening conditions; and ContrastSorb for the removal of IV contrast in blood administered during CT imaging, an angiogram, or during a vascular interventional radiology procedure to reduce the risk of contrast-induced nephropathy. In addition, it develops BetaSorb, a device for the prevention and treatment of health complications caused by the accumulation of metabolic toxins in patients with chronic renal failure; DrugSorb, a device to remove drugs and chemicals from the blood; and DrugSorb-ATR, an antithrombotic removal system. The company was formerly known as MedaSorb Technologies Corporation and changed its name to Cytosorbents Corporation in May 2010. Cytosorbents Corporation was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.