IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Bruker (NASDAQ:BRKR) Critical Review

IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Bruker (NASDAQ:BRKR) are both large-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for IQVIA and Bruker, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
IQVIA	1	2	16	2	2.90
Bruker	1	6	5	2	2.57

IQVIA currently has a consensus price target of $294.21, suggesting a potential upside of 5.49%. Bruker has a consensus price target of $60.57, suggesting a potential downside of 7.93%. Given IQVIA’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe IQVIA is more favorable than Bruker.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares IQVIA and Bruker”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
IQVIA	$17.31 billion	2.66	$1.36 billion	$8.23	33.89
Bruker	$3.44 billion	2.92	-$8.60 million	($1.10)	-59.81

IQVIA has higher revenue and earnings than Bruker. Bruker is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than IQVIA, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

IQVIA has a beta of 1.16, suggesting that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bruker has a beta of 1.26, suggesting that its stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

89.6% of IQVIA shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.5% of Bruker shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of IQVIA shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 27.2% of Bruker shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares IQVIA and Bruker’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
IQVIA	8.05%	30.02%	6.52%
Bruker	-3.82%	13.76%	5.47%

Summary

IQVIA beats Bruker on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About IQVIA

IQVIA Holdings Inc. engages in the provision of advanced analytics, technology solutions, and clinical research services to the life sciences industry in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through three segments: Technology & Analytics Solutions, Research & Development Solutions, and Contract Sales & Medical Solutions. The Technology & Analytics Solutions segment offers a range of cloud-based applications and related implementation services; real world solutions that enable life sciences and provider customers to generate and disseminate evidence, which informs health care decision making and improves patients’ outcomes; and strategic and implementation consulting services, such as advanced analytics and commercial processes outsourcing services. This segment also provides country level performance metrics related to sales of pharmaceutical products, prescribing trends, medical treatment, and promotional activity across various channels, including retail, hospital, and mail order; and measurement of sales or prescribing activity at the regional, zip code, and individual prescriber level. The Research & Development Solutions segment offers project management and clinical monitoring; clinical trial support; strategic planning and design services; and patient and site centric solutions, as well as central laboratory, genomic, bioanalytical, ADME, discovery, and vaccine and biomarker laboratory services. The Contract Sales & Medical Solutions segment provides health care provider and patient engagement services, and scientific strategy and medical affairs services. It serves pharmaceutical, biotechnology, device and diagnostic, and consumer health companies. The company has a collaboration with argenx SE. The company was formerly known as Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to IQVIA Holdings Inc. in November 2017. The company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina.

About Bruker

Bruker Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and distributes scientific instruments, and analytical and diagnostic solutions in the United States, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) BioSpin, BSI CALID, BSI Nano, and Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies. It offers life science tools, and single and multiple modality systems; life science mass spectrometry; MALDI Biotyper rapid pathogen identification platform and related test kits, DNA test strips, and fluorescence-based polymerase chain reaction technology; genotype and fluorotype molecular diagnostics kits; research, analytical, and process analysis instruments and solutions; SARS-CoV 2 testing for the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection; and Fluorotyper-SARS-CoV 2 plus kits. It also provides range of portable analytical and bioanalytical detection systems, and related products; X-ray instruments; analytical tools for electron microscopes, as well as handheld, portable, and mobile X-ray fluorescence spectrometry instruments; atomic force microscopy instrumentation; non-contact nanometer resolution solution topography; and automated X-ray metrology, automated AFM defect-detection, and photomask repair and cleaning equipment. In addition, the company offers advanced optical fluorescence microscopy instruments; products and services to support the multi-omics needs of researchers in translational research, drug, and biomarker discovery; superconducting materials, such as metallic low temperature superconductors; devices and complex tools based on metallic low temperature superconductors; and non-superconducting high technology tools, such as synchrotron and beamline instrumentation. The company was incorporated in 1991 and is headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts.