Contrasting Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) & Integer (NYSE:ITGR)

Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) and Integer (NYSE:ITGR) are both medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, risk, valuation and profitability.

Volatility and Risk

Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.86, indicating that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Integer has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.3% of Integer shares are held by institutional investors. 4.9% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of Integer shares are held by 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Mesa Laboratories and Integer, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mesa Laboratories	1	2	0	0	1.67
Integer	0	2	6	1	2.89

Mesa Laboratories presently has a consensus target price of $67.00, indicating a potential downside of 5.30%. Integer has a consensus target price of $139.57, indicating a potential upside of 32.52%. Given Integer’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Integer is more favorable than Mesa Laboratories.

Profitability

This table compares Mesa Laboratories and Integer’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mesa Laboratories	-0.26%	24.49%	9.03%
Integer	4.61%	12.27%	6.23%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Mesa Laboratories and Integer”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mesa Laboratories	$240.98 million	1.61	-$1.97 million	($0.14)	-505.36
Integer	$1.72 billion	2.15	$119.90 million	$2.27	46.40

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

Summary

Integer beats Mesa Laboratories on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mesa Laboratories

Mesa Laboratories, Inc. develops, designs, manufactures, sells, and services life sciences tools and quality control products and services in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The Sterilization and Disinfection Control segment offers biological, chemical, and cleaning indicators, used to assess the effectiveness of sterilization decontamination, disinfection, and cleaning processes in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare industries. This segment also provides testing and laboratory services to the dental and pharmaceutical industries. The Clinical Genomics segment offers MassARRAY, a genetic analysis tool system, and related consumables, including chips, panels, and chemical reagent solutions used by clinical labs to analyze DNA samples for inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, oncology testing, infectious disease testing, doping and toxicology testing, and other differentiated applications for use in research. The Biopharmaceutical Development segment provides automated systems, such as Gyrolab xPand and Gyrolab xPlore hardware and software, Gyrolab Bioaffy consumable microfluidic disks, Gyrolab kits and Rexxip buffers for protein analysis; PurePep Chorus and Symphony instruments for peptide synthesis; and PurePep EasyClean products for purifying peptides. The Calibration Solutions segment offers quality control products to measure and calibrate critical parameters in applications, such as environmental and process monitoring, dialysis, gas flow, air quality, and torque testing in medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing, laboratory, and hospital environments. This segment’s products include continuous monitoring systems, dialysate meters and consumables, data loggers, gas flow calibration and air sampling equipment, and torque testing systems, offered under DialyGuard, ViewPoint, DataTrace, DryCal, and BGI brands. The company was incorporated in 1982 and is headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado.

About Integer

Integer Holdings Corporation operates as a medical device outsource manufacturer in the United States, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Medical and Non-Medical. The company offers products for interventional cardiology, structural heart, heart failure, peripheral vascular, neurovascular, interventional oncology, electrophysiology, vascular access, infusion therapy, hemodialysis, non-vascular, urology, and gastroenterology procedures. It also provides cardiac rhythm management products, including implantable pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators, insertable cardiac monitors, implantable cardiac pacing and defibrillation leads, and heart failure therapies; neuromodulation products, such as implantable spinal cord stimulators; and non-rechargeable batteries, feedthroughs, device enclosures, machined components, and lead components and sub-assemblies. In addition, the company offers rechargeable batteries and chargers; and arthroscopic, laparoscopic, and general surgery devices and components, such as harmonic scalpels, shaver blades, burr shavers, radio frequency probes, biopsy probes, trocars, electrocautery components, wound dressings, GERD treatment components, and phacoemulsification needles. Further, it provides orthopedic products that include instruments used in hip, knee, and spine surgeries, as well as reamers and chisels. Additionally, the company offers customized battery power and power management systems, and battery solutions for the energy, military, and environmental markets. Furthermore, the company provides medical technologies. It serves multi-national original equipment manufacturers and their affiliated subsidiaries in the cardiac rhythm management, neuromodulation, orthopedics, vascular, and advanced surgical and portable medical markets. Integer Holdings Corporation was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.