Critical Contrast: IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) vs. Cytek Biosciences (NASDAQ:CTKB)

Cytek Biosciences (NASDAQ:CTKB) and IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership and dividends.

Volatility and Risk

Cytek Biosciences has a beta of 1.17, meaning that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IQVIA has a beta of 1.18, meaning that its share price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

69.5% of Cytek Biosciences shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.6% of IQVIA shares are owned by institutional investors. 10.4% of Cytek Biosciences shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of IQVIA shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Cytek Biosciences and IQVIA, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cytek Biosciences	1	2	3	0	2.33
IQVIA	0	3	13	1	2.88

Cytek Biosciences presently has a consensus price target of $5.69, indicating a potential upside of 36.06%. IQVIA has a consensus price target of $241.88, indicating a potential upside of 2.46%. Given Cytek Biosciences’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Cytek Biosciences is more favorable than IQVIA.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Cytek Biosciences and IQVIA”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cytek Biosciences	$201.49 million	2.68	-$66.54 million	($0.57)	-7.33
IQVIA	$16.98 billion	2.29	$1.36 billion	$8.06	29.29

IQVIA has higher revenue and earnings than Cytek Biosciences. Cytek Biosciences 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 Cytek Biosciences and IQVIA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cytek Biosciences	-36.25%	-10.07%	-7.56%
IQVIA	8.10%	30.25%	6.54%

Summary

IQVIA beats Cytek Biosciences on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cytek Biosciences

Cytek Biosciences, Inc., a cell analysis solutions company, provides cell analysis tools that facilitates scientific advances in biomedical research and clinical applications. It offers aurora and northern lights systems, which are spectrum flow cytometers that delivers cell analysis by utilizing the fluorescence signatures from multiple lasers to distinguish fluorescent tags on single cells; and aurora cell sorter system that leverages full spectrum profiling technology to further broaden potential applications across cell analysis; aurora CS systems; amnis imagestream imaging flow cytometers; guava muse cell analyzers; guava easycyte flow cytometers; and orion reagent cocktail preparation systems. The company also provides reagents and kits, including cFluor reagents that are fluorochrome conjugated antibodies used to identify cells of interest for analysis on its instruments, as well as 25-color immunoprofiling assay that provides turnkey solutions for identifying major human immune subpopulations for TBNK cells, monocytes, dendritic cells, and basophils. In addition, it offers automated micro-sampling system and automated sample loader system, an automated loaders to integrate seamlessly into the aurora and northern lights systems; SpectroFlo software that provides intuitive workflow from quality control to data analysis for aurora and northern lights systems; and customer support tools. The company serves pharmaceutical and biopharma companies, academic research centers, and clinical research organizations. It distributes its products through direct sales force and support organizations in North America, Europe, China, and the Asia-Pacific regions; and through distributors or sales agents in European, Latin American, and the Middle Eastern countries. The company was formerly known as Cytoville, Inc. and changed its name to Cytek Biosciences, Inc. in August 2015. Cytek Biosciences, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.

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.