Head-To-Head Survey: Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO.B) & BioLife Solutions (NASDAQ:BLFS)

Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO.B) and BioLife Solutions (NASDAQ:BLFS) are both healthcare companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Bio-Rad Laboratories and BioLife Solutions, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bio-Rad Laboratories	0	0	0	0	0.00
BioLife Solutions	1	8	1	1	2.18

BioLife Solutions has a consensus price target of $31.38, indicating a potential downside of 13.76%. Given BioLife Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe BioLife Solutions is more favorable than Bio-Rad Laboratories.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bio-Rad Laboratories	8.59%	3.54%	2.48%
BioLife Solutions	53.29%	2.70%	2.49%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.0% of Bio-Rad Laboratories shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.2% of BioLife Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. 28.4% of Bio-Rad Laboratories shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of BioLife Solutions shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Bio-Rad Laboratories and BioLife Solutions”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bio-Rad Laboratories	$2.58 billion	3.78	$759.90 million	$8.25	44.25
BioLife Solutions	$96.21 million	18.48	-$4.59 million	$1.16	31.36

Bio-Rad Laboratories has higher revenue and earnings than BioLife Solutions. BioLife Solutions 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.

Volatility and Risk

Bio-Rad Laboratories has a beta of 0.93, indicating that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BioLife Solutions has a beta of 1.93, indicating that its share price is 93% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

BioLife Solutions beats Bio-Rad Laboratories on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About BioLife Solutions

BioLife Solutions, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets bioproduction tools and services for the cell and gene therapy (CGT) industry in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. The company’s products are used in the basic and applied research, and commercial manufacturing of biologic-based therapies. It offers proprietary biopreservation media products, including HypoThermosol FRS and CryoStor Freeze Media that are formulated to mitigate preservation-induced, delayed-onset cell damage and death; bioproduction tools, such as human platelet lysates for cell expansion and CellSeal closed system vials that are used in CGT; and the ThawSTAR line that comprises of a family of automated thawing devices for frozen cell and gene therapies packaged in cryovials and cryobags. The company also provides cryogenic freezer technology for controlled rate freezing and cryogenic storage of biologic materials; ultra-low temperature mechanical freezers; evo shipping containers that are cloud-connected passive storage and transport containers for temperature-sensitive biologics and pharmaceuticals; liquid nitrogen laboratory freezers, cryogenic equipment, and accessories; and biological and pharmaceutical storage and transport services. It markets and sells its products directly, as well as through third party distributors. The company was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Bothell, Washington.