Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB – Get Free Report) and VivoSim Labs (NASDAQ:VIVS – Get Free Report) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, valuation, risk, earnings and institutional ownership.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Mesa Laboratories and VivoSim Labs, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Mesa Laboratories | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
| VivoSim Labs | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 |
Mesa Laboratories currently has a consensus target price of $110.00, suggesting a potential downside of 13.91%. Given Mesa Laboratories’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Mesa Laboratories is more favorable than VivoSim Labs.
Earnings & Valuation
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Mesa Laboratories | $249.13 million | 2.87 | $6.71 million | $0.84 | 152.12 |
| VivoSim Labs | $130,000.00 | 35.50 | -$13.84 million | ($4.47) | -0.06 |
Mesa Laboratories has higher revenue and earnings than VivoSim Labs. VivoSim Labs is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mesa Laboratories, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Mesa Laboratories and VivoSim Labs’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Mesa Laboratories | 1.92% | 22.72% | 9.82% |
| VivoSim Labs | -11,016.07% | -612.23% | -177.02% |
Volatility & Risk
Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.97, meaning that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VivoSim Labs has a beta of 1.45, meaning that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 8.2% of VivoSim Labs shares are held by institutional investors. 2.8% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of VivoSim Labs shares are held 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
Mesa Laboratories beats VivoSim Labs on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.
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.
About VivoSim Labs
Organovo Holdings, Inc., a biotechnology company, focuses on developing 3D tissues that recapitulate key aspects of human disease. Its 3D human tissue platform includes its proprietary NovoGen Bioprinters, which are automated devices that enable the fabrication of 3D living tissues comprised mammalian cells; and related technologies for preparing bio-inks and bioprinting multicellular tissues with complex architecture. The company offers ExVive human liver tissue and ExVive human kidney tissue used for predictive preclinical testing of drug compounds. It is also developing in vivo liver tissues to treat end-stage liver, life-threatening, and orphan diseases. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Solana Beach, California.
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