Quest Diagnostics Inc. DGX benefits from its robust utilization of the Advanced Diagnostics portfolio offerings. The company also expands through strategic acquisitions, completing eight transactions in 2024. A strong focus on operational excellence is highly encouraging for the stock. Meanwhile, the adverse impacts of the broader industry challenges and fierce competitive landscape pose risks to its operations.
In the past year, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has rallied 38% compared with the industry’s 9.7% growth and the S&P 500 composite’s 19.6% rise.
The renowned provider of diagnostic information services has a market capitalization of $19.11 billion. Quest Diagnostics has an earnings yield of 5.63% compared with the industry’s yield of 4.31%. The company’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, delivering an average surprise of 3.75%.
Tailwinds for DGX
Strong Potential of Advanced Diagnostics: Quest Diagnostics is expanding its Advanced Diagnostics portfolio to improve patient care and drive growth. Comprising highly specialized services, including molecular genomics and oncology tests, their increasing adoption is driving a favorable test mix and growth in test per requisition for the company. Within brain health, the robust demand for AD-detect blood tests for assessing Alzheimer's disease risk drove solid growth in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Quest Diagnostics plans to expand the portfolio with new biomarkers to help providers better assess Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Growth in women's health was driven largely by prenatal and hereditary genetic testing, consistent with the recent quarters. The company saw a robust uptake of self-collection options for genital tract infection testing in the quarter. In molecular genomics and oncology, Quest Diagnostics progressed with the Haystack MRD blood test for early detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) from solid tumor cancers.
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Progress With Acquisition Strategy: Quest Diagnostics continues to drive growth through value-creating and strategically aligned acquisitions, mainly focusing on accretive outreach purchases and other independent labs. These also position the company to expand into key geographic areas across the United States, where the influence of health systems had previously limited their reach. In 2024, Quest Diagnostics completed eight acquisitions, all of which align with its criteria for growth, profitability and returns.
The addition of LifeLabs boosted Quest Diagnostics’ DIS revenues in the fourth quarter of 2024, strengthening its foothold in the Canadian market and creating new growth opportunities. The company also completed the acquisition of outreach lab assets from Ohio Health and University Hospitals, two leading non-profit health systems in Ohio. This year, the company plans to moderate its acquisition pace and focus on driving growth from these completed transactions.
Strategic Imperative to Drive Operational Excellence: Quest Diagnostics strategically deploys automation and AI to improve quality, service, efficiency and the workforce experience. In 2024, its cost excellence program, Invigorate, delivered 3% annual cost savings and productivity enhancements while achieving significant improvements in retention rates across various job categories. The Clifton, NJ, lab serves as a hub for many of Quest Diagnostics’ automation and AI solutions, including a proprietary system for enhanced tuberculosis testing and an accessioning solution that speeds requisition processing. The company also deployed a third-party AI solution to enhance parasitology screening by identifying likely positive specimens for further review.
Concerns for DGX
Industry Risks That May Affect the Stock: Amid the continuing evolution of the healthcare industry, the company’s operations are exposed to several inherent risks, such as fluctuations in healthcare utilization rate, softer testing volumes, commercial pricing pressure and reimbursement headwinds. The clinical testing industry is also subject to seasonal fluctuations. Clinical testing orders generated from clinician offices, hospitals, employers and consumers can be affected by changes in the U.S. economy and regulatory environment.
Competitive Landscape: Quest Diagnostics faces intense competition, primarily from LabCorp, other commercial laboratories and hospitals. While pricing is an important factor in choosing a testing lab, hospital-affiliated physicians expect a high level of service, including an accurate and rapid turnaround of testing results. As a result, Quest Diagnostics and other commercial labs compete with hospital-affiliated labs, primarily based on the quality of service.
DGX Stock Estimate Trend
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Quest Diagnostics’ 2025 earnings per share (EPS) has dropped by 1 cent to $9.70 in the past 30 days.
The consensus estimate for the company’s 2025 revenues is pegged at $10.77 billion. This suggests 9.1% growth from the year-ago reported number.
Key Picks
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Phibro Animal Health PAHC, Boston Scientific BSX and Cardinal Health CAH.
Phibro Animal Health has an estimated fiscal 2025 earnings growth rate of 62.1% compared with the industry’s 15.4%. Its earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 27.06%. Its shares have surged 68.2% compared with the industry’s 12.5% growth in the past year.
PAHC sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Boston Scientific, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), has an earnings yield of 2.7% compared with the industry’s 1.4%. Shares of the company have rallied 56.9% compared with the industry’s 12.5% growth. BSX’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 8.3%.
Cardinal Health, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 10.7% compared with the industry’s 9.4%. Shares of the company have rallied 15.9% against the industry’s 4.1% fall. CAH’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 9.6%.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
