Financial Comparison: Iovance Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:IOVA) and Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN)

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) and Iovance Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:IOVA) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Qiagen and Iovance Biotherapeutics, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Qiagen	0	7	3	0	2.30
Iovance Biotherapeutics	0	1	7	0	2.88

Qiagen currently has a consensus price target of $47.71, indicating a potential upside of 20.16%. Iovance Biotherapeutics has a consensus price target of $20.25, indicating a potential upside of 472.03%. Given Iovance Biotherapeutics’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Iovance Biotherapeutics is more favorable than Qiagen.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

70.0% of Qiagen shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.0% of Iovance Biotherapeutics shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.0% of Qiagen shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 12.1% of Iovance Biotherapeutics shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Qiagen and Iovance Biotherapeutics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Qiagen	4.23%	13.92%	8.40%
Iovance Biotherapeutics	-451.25%	-58.43%	-45.48%

Volatility and Risk

Qiagen has a beta of 0.44, suggesting that its share price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iovance Biotherapeutics has a beta of 0.93, suggesting that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Qiagen and Iovance Biotherapeutics”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Qiagen	$1.98 billion	4.45	$83.59 million	$0.36	110.29
Iovance Biotherapeutics	$164.07 million	7.07	-$444.04 million	($1.30)	-2.72

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

About Qiagen

QIAGEN NV is a holding company, which engages in the provision of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. The company sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA, and proteins from blood, tissue, and other materials. The firm assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Its bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. The company was founded by Detlev H. Riesner and Metin Colpan on April 29, 1996, and is headquartered in Venlo, the Netherlands.

About Iovance Biotherapeutics

Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc., a commercial-stage biotechnology company, develops and commercializes cell therapies using autologous tumor infiltrating lymphocyte for the treatment of metastatic melanoma and other solid tumor cancers in the United States. The company offers Amtagvi, a tumor-derived autologous T cell immunotherapy used to treat adult patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; and Proleukin, an interleukin-2 product for the treatment of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. It also develops lifileucel in combination with pembrolizumab to treat frontline advanced melanoma patients; LN-145 for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and solid tumor cancers; IOV-4001, which is in Phase 1/2 IOV-GM1-201 clinical trial, for the treatment of NSCLC; and lifileucel for gynecological cancers. The company has collaborations and licensing agreements with WuXi Advanced Therapies, Inc.; National Institutes of Health; the National Cancer Institute; H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center; The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; Cellectis S.A.; Novartis Pharma AG; and Boehringer Ingelheim Biopharmaceuticals GmbH. The company was formerly known as Lion Biotechnologies, Inc. and changed its name to Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. in June 2017. Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in San Carlos, California.