Reviewing Adaptive Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADPT) and IQVIA (NYSE:IQV)

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

Profitability

This table compares Adaptive Biotechnologies and IQVIA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Adaptive Biotechnologies	-20.73%	-36.81%	-13.77%
IQVIA	8.10%	30.25%	6.54%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Adaptive Biotechnologies and IQVIA, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Adaptive Biotechnologies	1	1	5	0	2.57
IQVIA	0	3	13	1	2.88

Adaptive Biotechnologies presently has a consensus price target of $24.42, suggesting a potential downside of 4.55%. IQVIA has a consensus price target of $241.88, suggesting a potential downside of 6.56%. Given Adaptive Biotechnologies’ higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Adaptive Biotechnologies is more favorable than IQVIA.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Adaptive Biotechnologies and IQVIA”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Adaptive Biotechnologies	$276.98 million	14.74	-$59.50 million	($0.41)	-62.39
IQVIA	$16.31 billion	2.61	$1.36 billion	$8.06	32.12

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

Volatility & Risk

Adaptive Biotechnologies has a beta of 2.08, indicating that its stock price is 108% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IQVIA has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.2% of Adaptive Biotechnologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.6% of IQVIA shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.7% of Adaptive Biotechnologies shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of IQVIA shares are owned by 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.

Summary

IQVIA beats Adaptive Biotechnologies on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Adaptive Biotechnologies

Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, a commercial-stage company, develops an immune medicine platform for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. The company offers immunosequencing platform which combines a suite of proprietary chemistry, computational biology, and machine learning to generate clinical immunomics data to decode the adaptive immune system. It also provides clonoSEQ diagnostic test which detects and monitors the remaining number of cancer cells that are present in a patient’s body during and after treatment, known as Minimal Residual Disease (MRD). The company offers products and services for life sciences research, clinical diagnostics, and drug discovery applications. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation has strategic collaborations with Genentech, Inc. for the development, manufacture, and commercialization of neoantigen directed T cell therapies for the treatment of a range of cancers; and Microsoft Corporation to develop diagnostic tests for the early detection of various diseases from a single blood test. The company was formerly known as Adaptive TCR Corporation and changed its name to Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation in December 2011. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

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.