Compare price, profitability, solvency, and SEC-reported financials side by side—before deciding which assumptions deserve a closer look.
FY 2025 · View financials
Decision snapshot: LGND stock price vs MRK: inconclusive Relative valuation is incomplete for this pair. Review the available filing metrics before drawing a conclusion.
Quick read
Each company valued on the other's multiple, then compared with the market price.
Implied fair value · at MRK's multiple
Needs MRK P/E.
Implied fair value · at LGND's multiple
Needs LGND P/E.
Live quote
Price unavailable
Metric by metric
Where each company leads, and how wide the gap is.
Growth edge
Pricing power
Operating leverage
Lower is better
Not comparable
Lower leverage
Statements
Core statements aligned to each company's latest fiscal year.
SEC periods: LGND FY 2025 (ended Dec 31, 2025) · MRK FY 2025 (ended Dec 31, 2025).
Trendline
Five fiscal years of revenue, earnings, and margins before underwriting a re-rating.
Price framework
Market cap plus debt, less cash.
Price framework
Discounted free cash flow, then bridged to a per-share price. Same assumptions applied to both companies.
LIGAND PHARMACEUTICALS INCORPORATED · implied price per share
Bear
$101.45
Base
$119.35
Bull
$137.25
Merck & Co., Inc. · implied price per share
Bear
$84.04
Base
$98.87
Bull
$113.70
Balance sheet health
Financial health checks to separate durable balance sheets from potential value traps.
Financial strength on a 0–9 scale.
Bankruptcy-risk signal from balance sheet and earnings power.
Not enough data to score either balance sheet.
Debt / equity
Total debt against shareholders' equity
0.25x
0.48x
Net debt / EBITDA
Leverage against operating earnings
-2.31x
0.34x
Cash and equivalents
Liquid reserves on the balance sheet
$733.52M
$15.01B
Total debt
Interest-bearing obligations outstanding
Comparable set
Where the pair sits against the wider comparable set.
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AMGEN INC
LGND vs AMGN
$252.03M
$25.10B
Live quote
LLM-powered synthesis
An on-demand narrative read of the same deterministic data.
Based on an earlier data snapshot. Review the filing dates below or refresh after signing in.
If you believe LGND can sustain 60.4% revenue growth with premium margins, then holding or buying can be justified despite the high multiple because its operating profile is far stronger than MRK’s; otherwise, the valuation gap versus the $100.24 implied price and the $80.49-$108.90 DCF range argues for caution.
LGND is trading at a significant premium to MRK on every reported valuation multiple, while the model’s implied price of $100.24 sits 60.8% below the current price of $255.54. That gap is partially explained by LGND’s much faster revenue growth and higher margins, but the absolute valuation remains rich versus both MRK and intrinsic value ranges.
Supporting Metrics
