Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, biotechnology company Maxygen (Nasdaq: MAXY) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Maxygen's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Maxygen facts

Headquarters (founded) San Mateo, Calif. (1996)
Market Cap $155.0 million
Industry Biotechnology
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $561 thousand
Management CEO/CFO James Sulat (since 2009)
Chief Patent Counsel Norman Kruse (since 1998)
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) 8.9%
Cash/Debt $162 million / $0
Competitors Eli Lilly
Roche
Human Genome Sciences

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 84% of the 156 members who have rated Maxygen believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.  

Earlier this week, one of those bulls, TMFDeej, brought a juicy catalyst to our community's attention:

I am going to dip back into the [Maxygen] well again after coming across an interesting article by Apsara Biotechnology Research on the a potential $30 million milestone payment that could be made by Bayer sometime this year. Thirty million bucks amounts to around a buck per share on [Maxygen], so with the company currently trading at only slightly above the cash that it has on the books it looks like there's the potential for the stock to advance $0.50 to $0.75/share in the near future when the payment is officially announced. That amounts to a 9% to 13% increase in the stock price. Whether that actually beats the S&P 500 will depend upon how long it takes for the payment to occur ... if it actually does ... and what the index does between now and then.

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