Analyzing IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW)

IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares IQVIA and Edwards Lifesciences”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
IQVIA	$15.41 billion	1.99	$1.37 billion	$6.91	26.05
Edwards Lifesciences	$5.69 billion	8.09	$4.17 billion	$6.95	11.28

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

Profitability

This table compares IQVIA and Edwards Lifesciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
IQVIA	7.88%	30.05%	6.77%
Edwards Lifesciences	72.96%	15.01%	11.56%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

89.6% of IQVIA shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.5% of Edwards Lifesciences shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of IQVIA shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of Edwards Lifesciences shares are owned 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.

Volatility and Risk

IQVIA has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its stock price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Edwards Lifesciences has a beta of 1.08, indicating that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for IQVIA and Edwards Lifesciences, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
IQVIA	0	6	17	0	2.74
Edwards Lifesciences	1	10	12	3	2.65

IQVIA currently has a consensus price target of $228.6190, suggesting a potential upside of 27.02%. Edwards Lifesciences has a consensus price target of $85.9048, suggesting a potential upside of 9.61%. Given IQVIA’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe IQVIA is more favorable than Edwards Lifesciences.

Summary

IQVIA beats Edwards Lifesciences on 9 of the 15 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 Edwards Lifesciences

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of aortic heart valves under the Edwards SAPIEN family of valves system; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases under the PASCAL PRECISION and Cardioband names. The company also provides surgical structural heart solutions, such as aortic surgical valve under the INSPIRIS name; INSPIRIS RESILLA aortic valve, which offers RESILIA tissue and VFit technology; KONECT RESILIA, a pre-assembled tissue valves conduit for complex combined procedures; and MITRIS RESILIA valve. In addition, it offers critical care solutions, including hemodynamic monitoring systems to measure a patient’s heart function and fluid status in surgical and intensive care settings under the FloTrac, Acumen IQ sensors, ClearSight, Acumen IQ cuffs, and ForeSight names; HemoSphere, a monitoring platform that displays physiological information; and Acumen Hypotension Prediction Index software that alerts clinicians in advance of a patient developing dangerously low blood pressure. The company distributes its products through a direct sales force and independent distributors. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.