Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) & IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) Head-To-Head Contrast

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

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares IQVIA and Simulations Plus”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
IQVIA	$16.31 billion	2.74	$1.36 billion	$8.23	32.98
Simulations Plus	$82.06 million	4.56	-$64.72 million	$0.40	46.25

IQVIA has higher revenue and earnings than Simulations Plus. IQVIA is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Simulations Plus, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

IQVIA has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Simulations Plus has a beta of 1.31, meaning that its share price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

89.6% of IQVIA shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.1% of Simulations Plus shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of IQVIA shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 19.1% of Simulations Plus shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares IQVIA and Simulations Plus’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
IQVIA	8.05%	30.02%	6.52%
Simulations Plus	9.88%	13.50%	12.45%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for IQVIA and Simulations Plus, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
IQVIA	1	2	16	2	2.90
Simulations Plus	1	5	0	0	1.83

IQVIA currently has a consensus price target of $294.21, suggesting a potential upside of 8.38%. Simulations Plus has a consensus price target of $17.25, suggesting a potential downside of 6.76%. Given IQVIA’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe IQVIA is more favorable than Simulations Plus.

Summary

IQVIA beats Simulations Plus on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Simulations Plus

Simulations Plus, Inc. develops drug discovery and development software for modeling and simulation, and prediction of molecular properties utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning based technology worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Software and Services. It offers GastroPlus, which simulates the absorption and drug interaction of compounds administered to humans and animals; and DDDPlus and MembranePlus simulation products. The company also provides products based on mechanistic and mathematical models, such as DILIsym, NAFLDsym, ILDsym, RENAsym, IPFsym, and MITOsym products. In addition, it offers Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity Predictor for chemistry-based computer program that takes molecular structures as inputs and predicts their properties; and MedChem Designer, as well as MonolixSuite products for modeling and simulation that allows for population analyses, rapid clinical trial data analyses, and regulatory submissions. Further, the company provides clinical-pharmacology-based consulting services, which includes population pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling, exposure-response analyses, clinical trial simulations, data programming, and technical writing services in support of regulatory submissions; and early drug discovery services. Additionally, it offers creative and insightful consulting services to support its quantitative systems pharmacology/quantitative systems toxicology modelling. The company serves pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical, cosmetics, and food industry companies, as well as academic and regulatory agencies. Simulations Plus, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Lancaster, California.