Reviewing Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO.B) and GSK (NYSE:GSK)

GSK (NYSE:GSK) and Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO.B) are both medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Risk & Volatility

GSK has a beta of 0.36, suggesting that its stock price is 64% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bio-Rad Laboratories has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares GSK and Bio-Rad Laboratories’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GSK	17.82%	44.28%	11.49%
Bio-Rad Laboratories	6.52%	3.56%	2.49%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares GSK and Bio-Rad Laboratories”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GSK	$43.07 billion	2.49	$7.54 billion	$3.85	13.78
Bio-Rad Laboratories	$2.58 billion	3.15	$759.90 million	$6.07	50.11

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

15.7% of GSK shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of Bio-Rad Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. 10.0% of GSK shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 28.4% of Bio-Rad Laboratories shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for GSK and Bio-Rad Laboratories, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GSK	3	4	3	0	2.00
Bio-Rad Laboratories	0	0	0	0	0.00

GSK currently has a consensus target price of $53.00, suggesting a potential downside of 0.08%. Given GSK’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe GSK is more favorable than Bio-Rad Laboratories.

Summary

GSK beats Bio-Rad Laboratories on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GSK

GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, and manufacture of vaccines, and specialty and general medicines to prevent and treat disease in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Commercial Operations and Total R&D. The company offers shingles, meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus, flu, polio, influenza, and pandemic vaccines. It also provides medicines for HIV, oncology, respiratory/immunology, and other specialty medicine products, as well as inhaled medicines for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and antibiotics for infections. It has a collaboration agreement with CureVac to develop mRNA-based influenza vaccines, and with Wave Life Sciences and Elsie Biotechnologies, Inc for oligonucleotide platform development. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.

About Bio-Rad Laboratories

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. manufactures, and distributes life science research and clinical diagnostic products in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company operates through Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics segments. The Life Science segment develops, manufactures, and markets a range of reagents, apparatus, and laboratory instruments that are used in research techniques, biopharmaceutical production processes, and food testing regimes. It focuses on selected segments of the life sciences market in proteomics, genomics, biopharmaceutical production, cellular biology, and food safety. This segment serves universities and medical schools, industrial research organizations, government agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotechnology researchers, food producers, and food testing laboratories. The Clinical Diagnostics segment designs, manufactures, sells, and supports test systems, informatics systems, test kits, and specialized quality controls for clinical laboratories in the diagnostics market. This segment offers reagents, instruments, and software, which address specific niches within the in vitro diagnostics test market. It sells its products to reference laboratories, hospital laboratories, state newborn screening facilities, physicians' office laboratories, and transfusion laboratories. In addition, the company offers products and systems to separate complex chemical and biological materials, as well as to identify, analyze, and purify components. The company offers its products through its direct sales force, as well as through distributors, agents, brokers, and resellers. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Hercules, California.