Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, biomedical products company Cerus (CERS -0.59%) has received a distressing two-star ranking.

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

Cerus facts

  

Headquarters (founded)

Concord, Calif. (1991)

Market Cap

$183.0 million

Industry

Healthcare supplies

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$36.7 million

Management

CEO William Greenman
Co-Founder/Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Laurence Corash

Return on Capital
(average, past 3 years)

(49.5%)

Cash/Debt

$26.7 million / $8.2 million

Competitors

Gen-Probe
Haemonetics (HAE 1.73%)
Pall (NYSE: PLL)

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

On CAPS, 29% of the 35 All-Star members who have rated Cerus believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Earlier today, one of those Fools, BlacknGold, succinctly summed up the bear case for our community:

Cerus recovered nicely from two horrible quarters (4Q11 and 1Q12) by dramatically slashing losses without increasing revenue. The improvement in efficiency is nice to see, but ultimately the company is still way over priced. With only $17 million in shareholders' equity and losses mounting every quarter there is little reason it should sport a market cap of $187 million. Underperform long term.

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