Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI – Get Free Report) and Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR – Get Free Report) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings and dividends.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Maravai LifeSciences and Icon, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Maravai LifeSciences | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2.60 |
| Icon | 1 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 2.50 |
Maravai LifeSciences presently has a consensus price target of $7.38, indicating a potential downside of 8.04%. Icon has a consensus price target of $213.76, indicating a potential upside of 2.97%. Given Icon’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Icon is more favorable than Maravai LifeSciences.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
50.2% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.6% of Icon shares are held by institutional investors. 2.5% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 44.0% of Icon shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Profitability
This table compares Maravai LifeSciences and Icon’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Maravai LifeSciences | -30.83% | -12.23% | -6.43% |
| Icon | 5.45% | 7.73% | 4.39% |
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Maravai LifeSciences and Icon”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Maravai LifeSciences | $185.74 million | 11.21 | -$130.77 million | ($0.43) | -18.65 |
| Icon | $8.25 billion | 1.93 | $229.34 million | $5.81 | 35.73 |
Icon has higher revenue and earnings than Maravai LifeSciences. Maravai LifeSciences is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Icon, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
Maravai LifeSciences has a beta of 0.61, suggesting that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Icon has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its share price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Icon beats Maravai LifeSciences on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Maravai LifeSciences
Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc., a life sciences company, provides products to enable the development of drug therapies, diagnostics, novel vaccines, and support research on human diseases worldwide. The company’s products address the key phases of biopharmaceutical development and include nucleic acids for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, antibody-based products to detect impurities during the production of biopharmaceutical products, and products to detect the expression of proteins in tissues of various species. It operates in two segments, Nucleic Acid Production and Biologics Safety Testing. The Nucleic Acid Production segment manufactures and sells products for use in the fields of gene therapy, vaccines, nucleoside chemistry, oligonucleotide therapy, and molecular diagnostics, including reagents used in the chemical synthesis, modification, labelling, and purification of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). This segment also offers messenger RNA, oligonucleotides, and oligonucleotide building blocks, as well as custom enzyme development and manufacturing and CleanCap capping technology. The Biologics Safety Testing segment sells analytical products for use in biologic manufacturing process development, including custom product-specific development antibody, and assay development services. This segment also provides HCP ELISA kits, other bioprocess impurity and contaminant ELISA kits, ancillary reagents, viral clearance prediction kits, and custom services. The company serves biopharmaceutical companies, and other biopharmaceutical and life sciences research companies; and academic research institutions and in vitro diagnostics companies. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.
About Icon
ICON Public Limited Company, a clinical research organization, provides outsourced development and commercialization services in Ireland, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company specializes in the strategic development, management, and analysis of programs that support various stages of the clinical development process from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies. It also offers clinical development services, including all phases of development, peri and post approval, data solutions, and site and patient access services; clinical trial management, consulting, and contract staffing services; and commercial services comprising clinical development strategy, planning and trial design, full study execution, and post-market commercialization. In addition, the company provides laboratory services, including bionanalytical, biomarker, vaccine, good manufacturing practice, and central laboratory services, as well as full-service and functional service partnerships to customers. Further, it offers adaptive trials, cardiac safety solutions, clinical and scientific operations, consulting and advisory, commercial positioning, decentralized and hybrid clinical trials, early clinical, laboratories, language services, medical imaging, real world intelligence, site and patient, and strategic solutions. The company serves pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries, as well as government and public health organizations. ICON Public Limited Company was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
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