Head to Head Analysis: Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) versus Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:CRL)

Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:CRL) and Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Charles River Laboratories International and Personalis, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Charles River Laboratories International	1	3	11	0	2.67
Personalis	1	5	4	0	2.30

Charles River Laboratories International presently has a consensus target price of $265.69, suggesting a potential downside of 2.67%. Personalis has a consensus target price of $14.54, suggesting a potential downside of 9.72%. Given Charles River Laboratories International’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Charles River Laboratories International is more favorable than Personalis.

Profitability

This table compares Charles River Laboratories International and Personalis’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Charles River Laboratories International	-5.96%	15.75%	6.51%
Personalis	-153.84%	-46.47%	-35.30%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.9% of Charles River Laboratories International shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.9% of Personalis shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of Charles River Laboratories International shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Personalis shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Charles River Laboratories International has a beta of 1.4, meaning that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Personalis has a beta of 2.31, meaning that its stock price is 131% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Charles River Laboratories International and Personalis”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Charles River Laboratories International	$4.00 billion	3.26	-$144.34 million	($4.85)	-56.28
Personalis	$69.65 million	24.21	-$81.27 million	($1.09)	-14.77

Personalis has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Charles River Laboratories International. Charles River Laboratories International is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Personalis, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Charles River Laboratories International beats Personalis on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Charles River Laboratories International

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. provides drug discovery, non-clinical development, and safety testing services in the United States, Europe, Canada, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Research Models and Services (RMS), Discovery and Safety Assessment (DSA), and Manufacturing Solutions (Manufacturing). The RMS segment produces and sells rodents, and purpose-bred rats and mice for use by researchers. This segment also provides a range of services to assist its clients in supporting the use of research models in research and screening pre-clinical drug candidates, including research models, genetically engineered models and services, insourcing solutions, and research animal diagnostic services. The DSA segment offers early and in vivo discovery services for the identification and validation of novel targets, chemical compounds, and antibodies through delivery of preclinical drug and therapeutic candidates ready for safety assessment; and safety assessment services, such as toxicology, pathology, safety pharmacology, bioanalysis, drug metabolism, and pharmacokinetics services. The Manufacturing segment provides in vitro methods for conventional and rapid quality control testing of sterile and non-sterile pharmaceuticals and consumer products. This segment also offers specialized testing of biologics that are outsourced by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. It also provides contract vivarium operation services to biopharmaceutical clients. The company was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

About Personalis

Personalis, Inc. develops and markets advanced cancer genomic tests and analytics primarily in the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. Its tests and analytics are used by pharmaceutical companies for translational research, biomarker discovery, and development of personalized cancer therapies, as well as advanced tests are used by physicians to detect cancer recurrence, monitor cancer evolution, and uncover insights for therapy selection. The company offers NeXT Personal, a tumor-informed liquid biopsy test for detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) and recurrence in cancer; and ImmunoID NeXT, a tissue-based test that combines whole exome (DNA) and whole transcriptome (RNA) sequencing data with advanced analytics to provide a multi-dimensional view of the tumor and the tumor microenvironment from a single sample. It also provides NeXT Personal Dx, a tumor-informed liquid biopsy test for detection of MRD and recurrence in cancer; and NeXT Dx, a comprehensive tumor profiling test that unlocks the entire exome (DNA) and transcriptome (RNA) with matched tumor-normal analysis. In addition, the company performs whole exome sequencing (WES) of cancer tissue and matched blood samples for diagnostic companies as an input to their products; and whole genome sequencing (WGS) on human samples for research projects, such as population sequencing initiatives, as well as offers sequencing and data analysis services to support population sequencing initiatives. Its customers include pharmaceutical companies, biopharmaceutical companies, diagnostics companies, universities, non-profits, government entities, and patients. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Fremont, California.