Reviewing Embecta (NASDAQ:EMBC) & Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:CRL)

Embecta (NASDAQ:EMBC) and Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:CRL) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

Embecta has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Charles River Laboratories International has a beta of 1.47, indicating that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Embecta and Charles River Laboratories International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Embecta	7.58%	-23.40%	14.46%
Charles River Laboratories International	-1.69%	15.74%	7.09%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Embecta and Charles River Laboratories International, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Embecta	0	2	1	1	2.75
Charles River Laboratories International	1	9	6	0	2.31

Embecta presently has a consensus target price of $19.00, suggesting a potential upside of 26.58%. Charles River Laboratories International has a consensus target price of $177.07, suggesting a potential upside of 15.56%. Given Embecta’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Embecta is more favorable than Charles River Laboratories International.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Embecta and Charles River Laboratories International”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Embecta	$1.12 billion	0.78	$78.30 million	$1.43	10.50
Charles River Laboratories International	$4.03 billion	1.87	$22.20 million	($1.33)	-115.21

Embecta has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Charles River Laboratories International. Charles River Laboratories International is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Embecta, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

93.8% of Embecta shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.9% of Charles River Laboratories International shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Embecta shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of Charles River Laboratories International shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Embecta beats Charles River Laboratories International on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Embecta

Embecta Corp., a medical device company, focuses on the provision of various solutions to enhance the health and wellbeing of people living with diabetes. Its products include pen needles, syringes, and safety injection devices, as well as digital applications to assist people with managing patient's diabetes. The company primarily sells its products to wholesalers and distributors in the United States and internationally. Embecta Corp. was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey.

About Charles River Laboratories International

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. provides drug discovery, non-clinical development, and safety testing services in the United States, Europe, Canada, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Research Models and Services (RMS), Discovery and Safety Assessment (DSA), and Manufacturing Solutions (Manufacturing). The RMS segment produces and sells rodents, and purpose-bred rats and mice for use by researchers. This segment also provides a range of services to assist its clients in supporting the use of research models in research and screening pre-clinical drug candidates, including research models, genetically engineered models and services, insourcing solutions, and research animal diagnostic services. The DSA segment offers early and in vivo discovery services for the identification and validation of novel targets, chemical compounds, and antibodies through delivery of preclinical drug and therapeutic candidates ready for safety assessment; and safety assessment services, such as toxicology, pathology, safety pharmacology, bioanalysis, drug metabolism, and pharmacokinetics services. The Manufacturing segment provides in vitro methods for conventional and rapid quality control testing of sterile and non-sterile pharmaceuticals and consumer products. This segment also offers specialized testing of biologics that are outsourced by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. It also provides contract vivarium operation services to biopharmaceutical clients. The company was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.