Reviewing Glaukos (NYSE:GKOS) and Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB)

Mesa Laboratories (NASDAQ:MLAB) and Glaukos (NYSE:GKOS) are both medical companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation and dividends.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Mesa Laboratories and Glaukos”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mesa Laboratories	$249.13 million	2.15	$6.71 million	$1.20	80.83
Glaukos	$551.35 million	16.75	-$187.69 million	($3.28)	-47.95

Mesa Laboratories has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Glaukos. Glaukos is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Mesa Laboratories, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.6% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.0% of Glaukos shares are held by institutional investors. 4.9% of Mesa Laboratories shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.9% of Glaukos shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Mesa Laboratories and Glaukos’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mesa Laboratories	2.69%	20.96%	8.78%
Glaukos	-34.34%	-6.92%	-5.25%

Risk & Volatility

Mesa Laboratories has a beta of 0.93, indicating that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Glaukos has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Mesa Laboratories and Glaukos, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mesa Laboratories	1	2	0	0	1.67
Glaukos	1	1	13	0	2.80

Mesa Laboratories currently has a consensus target price of $94.00, indicating a potential downside of 3.09%. Glaukos has a consensus target price of $154.85, indicating a potential downside of 1.54%. Given Glaukos’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Glaukos is more favorable than Mesa Laboratories.

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 Glaukos

Glaukos Corporation, an ophthalmic pharmaceutical and medical technology company, focuses on the development of novel therapies for the treatment of glaucoma, corneal disorders, and retinal diseases. It offers iStent and iStent inject W micro-bypass stents that enhance aqueous humor outflow inserted in cataract surgery to treat mild-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma. The company's product pipeline includes iStent Infinite indicated for use in the treatment of patients with glaucoma uncontrolled by prior medical and surgical therapy; and iDose TR, an intracameral procedural pharmaceutical therapy indicated for the reduction of intraocular pressure in patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension. The company markets its products through direct sales organization, as well as through distributors in the United States and internationally. Glaukos Corporation was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California.