Contrasting IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) and Spectral AI (NASDAQ:MDAI)

Spectral AI (NASDAQ:MDAI) and IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) are both medical companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, earnings and risk.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

67.1% of Spectral AI shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.6% of IQVIA shares are held by institutional investors. 13.7% of Spectral AI shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of IQVIA shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Spectral AI and IQVIA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Spectral AI	-85.58%	N/A	-72.97%
IQVIA	8.33%	30.50%	6.53%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Spectral AI and IQVIA, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Spectral AI	1	0	1	0	2.00
IQVIA	0	2	13	2	3.00

Spectral AI currently has a consensus target price of $4.00, suggesting a potential upside of 73.16%. IQVIA has a consensus target price of $225.69, suggesting a potential upside of 35.98%. Given Spectral AI’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Spectral AI is more favorable than IQVIA.

Volatility and Risk

Spectral AI has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IQVIA has a beta of 1.18, meaning that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Spectral AI and IQVIA”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Spectral AI	$19.65 million	3.74	-$7.57 million	($0.53)	-4.36
IQVIA	$16.31 billion	1.70	$1.36 billion	$8.07	20.57

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

Summary

IQVIA beats Spectral AI on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Spectral AI

Spectral AI, Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI) company, focuses on developing predictive medical diagnostics in the United States. The company develops medical diagnostics for faster and accurate treatment decisions in wound care with applications involving patients with burns and diabetic foot ulcers. Its products include DeepView System, a predictive analytics platform integrated with the predictive AI-Burn, which combines AI algorithms and multispectral imaging (MSI) imaging for an assessment of wound healing potential and offers clinicians an objective and immediate assessment of a wound’s healing potential prior to treatment or other medical intervention; and DeepView SnapShot M, a handheld, portable, and wireless diagnostic tool, that provides a potential enhanced and expanded use for the government and emergency care, first responders, and potentially home health care professionals. The company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

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.