PRA Health (PRAH) Hits 52-Week High On Multiple Positives

Shares of PRA Health Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRAH) rallied to a new 52-week high of $92 on Dec 22, closing the session nominally lower at $91.53. This represents a strong year-to-date return of approximately 23.9%, higher than the S&P 500’s 6.8%. The stock sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Taking the stable stock performance into consideration, we expect PRA Health stock to scale new highs in the quarters ahead. The company also has a trailing four-quarter average positive earnings surprise of 6.89%. Its projected long-term growth rate of 18.1% (outperforming the broader industry’s 15.4% growth rate),is encouraging.

Estimate revision trend for the current year looks impressive as well. Over the past couple of months, five estimates have moved north with no movement in the opposite direction. In this period, earnings estimates have improved 1.8% for the current fiscal to reach $3.31 per share.

For the majority of the last three months, the company’s share price has considerably outperformed the broader industry. The stock has rallied 20.6% over the same time frame, beating the industry’s gain of just 9.3%.

Factors Driving the Stock

Stellar revenue performance over the last few quarters: Consistent revenue performance on the back of strong contribution from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies contributed to the company’s overall health. Considering the favorable foreign exchange scenario strong and balanced geographic expansion, we expect this trend to continue in the upcoming period.

Symphony Health Solutions Integration a Positive: The acquisition of Symphony Health Solutions, a pharmaceutical and data healthcare company, which was closed in the third quarter of 2017, has already proved itself to be a strategic addition to PRA Health’s overall business. In the third quarter, the deal delivered significant earnings growth of 41% and revenue growth of 18% on a year-over-year basis at constant currency.

New Director Appoinment: Investors may have taken the company’s management churn in a positive way. In this regard, we note that the company appointed a new director Alexander G. Dickinson last August. His competent background in analytics and informatics is believed to have boosted the firm’s performance. Previously, Dickinson served as the executive chairman of Chroma Code, a private clinical diagnostics company. He was also the senior vice president of Strategic Initiatives at Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) where he worked with national governments and large institutions to develop precision medicine programs for healthcare systems.

Key Picks

Some of the other top-ranked medical stocks are Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) , Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) and ICU Medical Inc. (NASDAQ:ICUI) . While Bio-Rad sports a Zacks Rank #1, Baxter and ICU Medical carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Bio-Rad’s earnings are estimated to grow 140.65% in the next quarter. The stock has rallied roughly 33.2% in a year.

Baxter’s earnings are projected to increase 7.33% next quarter. The stock has rallied roughly 45.9% in a year.

ICU Medical’s earnings are projected to grow 40.63% next year. The stock has rallied roughly 47.6% in a year.

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