Head to Head Review: Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) versus Harvard Bioscience (NASDAQ:HBIO)

Harvard Bioscience (NASDAQ:HBIO) and Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, valuation, earnings and dividends.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.9% of Harvard Bioscience shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are owned by institutional investors. 17.0% of Harvard Bioscience shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.8% of Mesa Laboratories shares are owned by company 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.

Profitability

This table compares Harvard Bioscience and Mesa Laboratories’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Harvard Bioscience	-11.86%	-33.13%	-4.80%
Mesa Laboratories	1.92%	22.72%	9.82%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Harvard Bioscience and Mesa Laboratories, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Harvard Bioscience	1	1	1	0	2.00
Mesa Laboratories	0	3	0	0	2.00

Harvard Bioscience presently has a consensus target price of $6.75, indicating a potential downside of 16.77%. Mesa Laboratories has a consensus target price of $110.00, indicating a potential downside of 13.98%. Given Mesa Laboratories’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Mesa Laboratories is more favorable than Harvard Bioscience.

Risk and Volatility

Harvard Bioscience has a beta of 1.49, suggesting that its share price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.92, suggesting that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Harvard Bioscience	$86.55 million	0.43	-$56.70 million	($2.31)	-3.51
Mesa Laboratories	$249.13 million	2.87	$6.71 million	$0.84	152.23

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

Summary

Mesa Laboratories beats Harvard Bioscience on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Harvard Bioscience

Harvard Bioscience, Inc. develops, manufactures, and sells technologies, products, and services for life science applications in the United States and internationally. The company offers cellular and molecular technology products, such as syringe and peristaltic infusion pump products; electroporation and electrofusion instruments, amino acid analyzers, spectrophotometers, and other equipment for molecular level testing and research; and precision scientific measuring instrumentation and equipment, including data acquisition systems for cellular analysis, complete micro electrode array solutions for in vivo recordings, and in vitro systems for extracellular recordings. It also provides preclinical products that includes platform to assess physiological data from organisms for research, drug discovery, and drug development services comprising implantable and externally worn telemetry systems for use in research to collect cardiovascular, central nervous system, respiratory, and metabolic data; behavioral products; isolated organ and surgical products, instruments and accessories for tissue, and organ-based lab research, including surgical products, infusion systems, and behavior research systems; turn-key respiratory system solutions, including plethysmograph chambers, data acquisition hardware, physiological signal analysis software, and final report generation; inhalation and exposure systems; and GLP-capable data acquisition and analysis systems. The company markets its products through sales organizations, websites, and distributors to research scientists in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities, hospitals, and government laboratories; and contract research organizations and academic labs. It primarily sells its products under Harvard Apparatus, DSI, Buxco, Biochrom, BTX, Heka, Hugo Sachs, Multichannel Systems MCS GmbH, and Panlab brands. Harvard Bioscience, Inc. was founded in 1901 and is based in Holliston, Massachusetts.

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.