Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (AMPH) & Taro Pharmaceutical Industries (TARO) Critical Analysis

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TARO) and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMPH) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitabiliy, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Taro Pharmaceutical Industries and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals’ revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Taro Pharmaceutical Industries	$879.39 million	5.24	$530.06 million	$11.06	10.29
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	$252.47 million	2.89	$25.34 million	$0.19	84.11

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries has higher revenue and earnings than Amphastar Pharmaceuticals. Taro Pharmaceutical Industries is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Taro Pharmaceutical Industries and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Taro Pharmaceutical Industries	51.90%	23.08%	20.63%
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	3.54%	2.69%	2.04%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Taro Pharmaceutical Industries and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Taro Pharmaceutical Industries	0	1	0	0	2.00
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	0	1	5	0	2.83

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals has a consensus target price of $20.17, suggesting a potential upside of 26.20%. Given Amphastar Pharmaceuticals’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Amphastar Pharmaceuticals is more favorable than Taro Pharmaceutical Industries.

Risk & Volatility

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries has a beta of 0.64, meaning that its share price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 1.65, meaning that its share price is 65% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

16.4% of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.0% of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals shares are held by institutional investors. 13.8% of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.1% of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries beats Amphastar Pharmaceuticals on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Company Profile

Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Taro) is a science-based pharmaceutical company. The Company operates principally through three entities: Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Taro Israel), and two of its subsidiaries, Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Taro Canada) and Taro U.S.A. The Company markets over 200 pharmaceutical products in over 25 countries. The Company’s owned product brands include Rokacet, with generic names, such as acetaminophen, codeine and caffeine; Topicort, with the generic name, desoximetasone; Etopan, with the generic name etodolac, and Ovide, with the generic name, malathion, among others. The Company’s other generic products include acetazolamide, adapalene, alclometasone dipropionate, amiodarone hydrochloride, ammonium lactate, augmented betamethasone dipropionate, cetirizine hydrochloride, clobetasol propionate, clomipramine hydrochloride, clorazepate dipotassium, fluorouracil, ketoconazole, metronidazole, mupirocin and warfarin sodium, among others.

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company. The Company focuses primarily on developing, manufacturing, marketing and selling generic and injectable, inhalation and intranasal products. The Company has two segments: finished pharmaceutical products and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) products. The finished pharmaceutical products segment manufactures, markets and distributes enoxaparin, Cortrosyn, Amphadase, naloxone, lidocaine jelly, as well as various other critical and non-critical care drugs. The API segment manufactures and distributes recombinant human insulin and porcine insulin. The Company also manufactures and sells insulin API. As of December 31, 2016, the Company manufactured and sold 19 products. As of December 31, 2016, the Company developed a portfolio of 15 generic abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) three generic biosimilar product candidates and six injectable and inhalation product candidates.