Head-To-Head Comparison: Glaukos (NYSE:GKOS) vs. Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO)

Glaukos (NYSE:GKOS) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) are both medical 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, valuation, risk and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Glaukos and Thermo Fisher Scientific, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Glaukos	1	1	12	0	2.79
Thermo Fisher Scientific	0	5	18	2	2.88

Glaukos presently has a consensus price target of $148.00, indicating a potential upside of 16.76%. Thermo Fisher Scientific has a consensus price target of $608.95, indicating a potential upside of 29.90%. Given Thermo Fisher Scientific’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Thermo Fisher Scientific is more favorable than Glaukos.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Glaukos and Thermo Fisher Scientific”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Glaukos	$507.44 million	14.67	-$187.69 million	($3.28)	-38.65
Thermo Fisher Scientific	$44.56 billion	3.91	$6.70 billion	$18.19	25.77

Thermo Fisher Scientific has higher revenue and earnings than Glaukos. Glaukos is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Thermo Fisher Scientific, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Glaukos and Thermo Fisher Scientific’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Glaukos	-34.34%	-6.92%	-5.25%
Thermo Fisher Scientific	15.15%	16.86%	8.15%

Volatility & Risk

Glaukos has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Thermo Fisher Scientific has a beta of 0.88, meaning that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.0% of Glaukos shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.2% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by institutional investors. 5.9% of Glaukos shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Thermo Fisher Scientific beats Glaukos on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets. Its Analytical Instruments segment provides instruments, consumables, software, and services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government, environmental, and other research and industrial markets, as well as clinical laboratories. The company's Specialty Diagnostics segment offers liquid, ready-to-use, and lyophilized immunodiagnostic reagent kits, as well as calibrators, controls, protein detection assays, and instruments; immunodiagnostics develops, manufactures and markets complete bloodtest systems to support the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases; dehydrated and prepared culture media, collection and transport systems, instrumentation, and consumables; human leukocyte antigen typing and testing for organ transplant market; and healthcare products. Its Laboratory Products and Biopharma Services segment provides laboratory products, research and safety market channel, and pharma services and clinical research. It offers products and services through a direct sales force, customer-service professionals, electronic commerce, and third-party distributors under Thermo Scientific; Applied Biosystems; Invitrogen; Fisher Scientific; Unity Lab Services; and Patheon and PPD. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.