Atyr PHARMA (NASDAQ:ATYR) versus Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) Head-To-Head Contrast

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

70.0% of Qiagen shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.7% of Atyr PHARMA shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.0% of Qiagen shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of Atyr PHARMA shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Qiagen and Atyr PHARMA, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Qiagen	0	7	3	0	2.30
Atyr PHARMA	0	0	6	1	3.14

Qiagen presently has a consensus price target of $47.71, suggesting a potential upside of 19.66%. Atyr PHARMA has a consensus price target of $18.60, suggesting a potential upside of 441.80%. Given Atyr PHARMA’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Atyr PHARMA is more favorable than Qiagen.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Qiagen and Atyr PHARMA”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Qiagen	$1.98 billion	4.47	$83.59 million	$0.36	110.75
Atyr PHARMA	$235,000.00	1,226.27	-$50.39 million	($0.94)	-3.65

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

Profitability

This table compares Qiagen and Atyr PHARMA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Qiagen	4.23%	13.92%	8.40%
Atyr PHARMA	N/A	-79.44%	-59.16%

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, Atyr PHARMA has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Qiagen beats Atyr PHARMA on 9 of the 15 factors compared between 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 Atyr PHARMA

aTyr Pharma, Inc. engages in the discovery and development of medicines based on novel biological pathways. Its product pipeline includes ATYR1923, ATYR2810, NRP2 mAbs, and AARS-1, DARS-1. The company was founded by Paul Schimmel, Xiang-Lei Yang and Bruce Beutler on September 8, 2005 and is headquartered in San Diego, CA.