Analyzing Certara (NASDAQ:CERT) and OptimizeRx (NASDAQ:OPRX)

Certara (NASDAQ:CERT) and OptimizeRx (NASDAQ:OPRX) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends and institutional ownership.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

74.0% of Certara shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.5% of OptimizeRx shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Certara shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.5% of OptimizeRx shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Certara and OptimizeRx, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Certara	1	5	4	1	2.45
OptimizeRx	1	2	6	0	2.56

Certara currently has a consensus target price of $8.28, suggesting a potential downside of 10.61%. OptimizeRx has a consensus target price of $11.57, suggesting a potential upside of 38.41%. Given OptimizeRx’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe OptimizeRx is more favorable than Certara.

Profitability

This table compares Certara and OptimizeRx’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Certara	-16.75%	3.86%	2.65%
OptimizeRx	4.66%	9.44%	7.11%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Certara and OptimizeRx”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Certara	$421.75 million	3.35	-$1.60 million	($0.45)	-20.58
OptimizeRx	$98.65 million	1.60	$5.13 million	$0.23	36.35

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

Volatility and Risk

Certara has a beta of 1.4, meaning that its share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, OptimizeRx has a beta of 1.09, meaning that its share price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

OptimizeRx beats Certara on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Certara

Certara, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides software products and technology-enabled services to customers for biosimulation in drug discovery, preclinical and clinical research, regulatory submissions, and market access in the United States and internationally. It offers solutions for model-informed drug development, as well as biosimulation solution used to predict both pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. The company provides Simcyp Simulator, a mechanistic biosimulation platform mechanistic biosimulation investigational new drug and translational stages; Simcyp Biopharmaceutics, used to identify and refine drug formulations; and Simcyp Secondary Intelligence which integrates toxicology with quantitative analysis of networks of molecular and functional biological changes to identify drug toxicity and adverse drug reactions. In addition, it offers Phoenix WinNonlin, a platform for non-compartmental analysis, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic, and toxicokinetic; phoenix hosted, that provides a secured and validated certara amazon web services workspace; Phoenix NLME, a population modeling and simulation software for nonlinear mixed effects models; and pirana modeling workbench. Further, the company provides pinnacle 21, a cloud-based platform for clinical data automation, standardization, and validation; Pinnacle 21 Data Exchange, used to define data standards and specifications; and Metadata Repository, to enable study design using controlled and standardized data. It serves life sciences companies, biopharmaceutical companies, research organizations, academic institutions, and global regulators, as well as animal health, crop science, bio science, medical devices, and public sector industries. Certara Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.

About OptimizeRx

OptimizeRx Corporation, a digital health technology company, enables care-focused engagement between life sciences organizations, healthcare providers, and patients at critical junctures throughout the patient care journey. It offers various tech-enabled marketing solutions through its Artificial Intelligence-generated Dynamic Audience and Activation Platform, which enables customers to execute traditional marketing campaigns on its proprietary digital point-of-care network, as well as dynamic marketing campaigns that optimize audiences in real time to increase the value of treatment information for healthcare professionals and patients in response to clinical care events. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Waltham, Massachusetts.