Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) versus Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI) Head-To-Head Review

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) and Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI) are both healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.1% of Avantor shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 50.2% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Avantor shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.5% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Avantor and Maravai LifeSciences”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Avantor	$6.56 billion	1.41	-$530.20 million	($0.84)	-16.26
Maravai LifeSciences	$208.78 million	7.09	-$130.77 million	($0.52)	-10.96

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

Profitability

This table compares Avantor and Maravai LifeSciences’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Avantor	-8.81%	9.92%	4.75%
Maravai LifeSciences	-37.07%	-15.70%	-8.17%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Avantor and Maravai LifeSciences, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Avantor	1	15	2	0	2.06
Maravai LifeSciences	2	0	2	0	2.00

Avantor presently has a consensus target price of $12.00, indicating a potential downside of 12.12%. Maravai LifeSciences has a consensus target price of $6.25, indicating a potential upside of 9.65%. Given Maravai LifeSciences’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Maravai LifeSciences is more favorable than Avantor.

Risk and Volatility

Avantor has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Maravai LifeSciences has a beta of 0.63, indicating that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Avantor beats Maravai LifeSciences on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Avantor

Avantor, Inc. engages in the provision of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, advanced technologies, and applied materials industries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers materials and consumables, such as purity chemicals and reagents, lab products and supplies, formulated silicone materials, customized excipients, customized single-use assemblies, process chromatography resins and columns, analytical sample prep kits, education and microbiology products, clinical trial kits, peristaltic pumps, and fluid handling tips. It also provides equipment and instrumentation products, including filtration systems, virus inactivation systems, incubators, analytical instruments, evaporators, ultra-low-temperature freezers, biological safety cabinets, and critical environment supplies. In addition, the company offers services and specialty procurements comprising onsite lab and production, clinical, equipment, procurement and sourcing, and biopharmaceutical material scale-up and development services. Further, it provides scientific research support services, such as DNA extraction, bioreactor servicing, clinical and biorepository, and compound management services. The company was founded in 1904 and is headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

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.