Veracyte (NASDAQ:VCYT – Get Free Report) and Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB – Get Free Report) are both medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation and analyst recommendations.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares Veracyte and Mesa Laboratories”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Veracyte | $445.76 million | 6.75 | $24.14 million | $0.38 | 100.21 |
| Mesa Laboratories | $240.98 million | 1.80 | -$1.97 million | ($0.32) | -246.13 |
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Veracyte and Mesa Laboratories, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Veracyte | 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 2.44 |
| Mesa Laboratories | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.67 |
Veracyte currently has a consensus price target of $46.14, indicating a potential upside of 21.17%. Mesa Laboratories has a consensus price target of $83.00, indicating a potential upside of 5.38%. Given Veracyte’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Veracyte is more favorable than Mesa Laboratories.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. 1.4% of Veracyte shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.9% of Mesa Laboratories 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.
Profitability
This table compares Veracyte and Mesa Laboratories’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Veracyte | 6.12% | 7.23% | 6.58% |
| Mesa Laboratories | -0.64% | 21.59% | 8.28% |
Risk and Volatility
Veracyte has a beta of 1.88, suggesting that its stock price is 88% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.89, suggesting that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Veracyte beats Mesa Laboratories on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Veracyte
Veracyte, Inc. engages in the research, development and commercialization of diagnostic products. The firm’s portfolio includes Afirma, Percepta, and Envisia. It intends to treat thyroid cancer, improve lung cancer screening, and clarify the diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The company was founded by Bonnie H. Anderson and Y. Douglas Dolginow on August 15, 2006 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, CA.
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.
Receive News & Ratings for Veracyte Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Veracyte and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
