Comparing Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) and Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI)

Maravai LifeSciences (NASDAQ:MRVI) and Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Maravai LifeSciences and Simulations Plus”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Maravai LifeSciences	$185.74 million	10.18	-$130.77 million	($0.52)	-14.01
Simulations Plus	$79.18 million	4.71	-$64.72 million	$0.40	46.09

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

50.2% of Maravai LifeSciences shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.1% of Simulations Plus shares are held by institutional investors. 2.5% of Maravai LifeSciences 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 hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Maravai LifeSciences and Simulations Plus, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Maravai LifeSciences	1	1	2	0	2.25
Simulations Plus	1	7	0	0	1.88

Maravai LifeSciences currently has a consensus price target of $6.83, suggesting a potential downside of 6.20%. Simulations Plus has a consensus price target of $17.25, suggesting a potential downside of 6.43%. Given Maravai LifeSciences’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Maravai LifeSciences is more favorable than Simulations Plus.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Maravai LifeSciences	-37.07%	-15.70%	-8.17%
Simulations Plus	9.88%	13.50%	12.45%

Volatility and Risk

Maravai LifeSciences has a beta of 0.6, indicating that its stock price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Simulations Plus has a beta of 1.33, indicating that its stock price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Simulations Plus beats Maravai LifeSciences on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Maravai LifeSciences

Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc., a life sciences company, provides products to enable the development of drug therapies, diagnostics, novel vaccines, and support research on human diseases worldwide. The company’s products address the key phases of biopharmaceutical development and include nucleic acids for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, antibody-based products to detect impurities during the production of biopharmaceutical products, and products to detect the expression of proteins in tissues of various species. It operates in two segments, Nucleic Acid Production and Biologics Safety Testing. The Nucleic Acid Production segment manufactures and sells products for use in the fields of gene therapy, vaccines, nucleoside chemistry, oligonucleotide therapy, and molecular diagnostics, including reagents used in the chemical synthesis, modification, labelling, and purification of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). This segment also offers messenger RNA, oligonucleotides, and oligonucleotide building blocks, as well as custom enzyme development and manufacturing and CleanCap capping technology. The Biologics Safety Testing segment sells analytical products for use in biologic manufacturing process development, including custom product-specific development antibody, and assay development services. This segment also provides HCP ELISA kits, other bioprocess impurity and contaminant ELISA kits, ancillary reagents, viral clearance prediction kits, and custom services. The company serves biopharmaceutical companies, and other biopharmaceutical and life sciences research companies; and academic research institutions and in vitro diagnostics companies. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

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.