Critical Contrast: Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMPH) and UroGen Pharma (NASDAQ:URGN)

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMPH) and UroGen Pharma (NASDAQ:URGN) are both medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

65.1% of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.3% of UroGen Pharma shares are held by institutional investors. 27.1% of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.1% of UroGen Pharma shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.82, indicating that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UroGen Pharma has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and UroGen Pharma, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	0	2	2	0	2.50
UroGen Pharma	0	0	4	1	3.20

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus price target of $60.33, indicating a potential upside of 31.45%. UroGen Pharma has a consensus price target of $48.38, indicating a potential upside of 298.15%. Given UroGen Pharma’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe UroGen Pharma is more favorable than Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.

Profitability

This table compares Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and UroGen Pharma’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	21.80%	26.44%	11.89%
UroGen Pharma	-129.11%	N/A	-47.94%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and UroGen Pharma”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals	$644.40 million	3.42	$137.54 million	$3.00	15.30
UroGen Pharma	$82.71 million	3.44	-$102.24 million	($3.15)	-3.86

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

About Amphastar Pharmaceuticals

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a bio-pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells generic and proprietary injectable, inhalation, and intranasal products in the United States, China, and France. It offers BAQSIMI, a nasal spray for the treatment of severe hypoglycemia; Primatene Mist, an over-the-counter epinephrine inhalation product for the temporary relief of mild symptoms of intermittent asthma; Enoxaparin, to prevent and treat deep vein thrombosis; REXTOVY and Naloxone for opioid overdose; Glucagon for injection emergency kit; and Cortrosyn, for use as a diagnostic agent in the screening of patients with adrenocortical insufficiency. The company provides Amphadase, an injection to absorb and disperse other injected drugs; Epinephrine injection for allergic reactions; Lidocaine jelly, an anesthetic product for urological procedures; Lidocaine topical solution for various procedures; Phytonadione injection, a vitamin K1 injection for newborn babies; emergency syringe products; morphine injection for use with patient-controlled analgesia pumps; and Lorazepam injection for surgery and medical procedures. In addition, it offers Neostigmine methylsulfate injection to treat myasthenia gravis and to reverse the effects of muscle relaxants; Isoproterenol hydrochloride injection for mild or transient episodes of heart block; Ganirelix Acetate injection for the inhibition of premature luteinizing hormone surges; Vasopressin to increase blood pressure; and Regadenoson, a stress agent for radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging. Further, the company distributes recombinant human insulin APIs and porcine insulin API. Additionally, it develops generic product candidates, such as injectable, inhalation, and analytical technologies; biosimial product candidates; and intranasal epinephrine for the treatment of allergic reactions. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

About UroGen Pharma

UroGen Pharma Ltd., a biotechnology company, engages in the development and commercialization of solutions for urothelial and specialty cancers. It offers RTGel, a novel proprietary polymeric biocompatible, reverse thermal gelation hydrogel technology to improve therapeutic profiles of existing drugs; and Jelmyto for pyelocalyceal solution. The company's lead product candidate is UGN-102 for the treatment of several forms of non-muscle invasive urothelial cancer that include low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer and low-grade intermediate risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). It is also developing UGN-301 for the treatment of high-grade NMIBC. The company has license agreement with Agenus Inc. to develop, make, use, sell, import, and commercialize products of Agenus for the treatment of cancers of the urinary tract via intravesical delivery; strategic research collaboration agreement with MD Anderson focusing on the sequential use of UGN-201 and UGN-301 for the treatment of NMIBC; and licensing and supply agreement with medac Gesellschaft für klinische Spezialpräparate m.b.H. to develop UGN-103 in low-grade intermediate risk NMIBC and UGN-104 in low-grade upper tract urothelial carcinoma. UroGen Pharma Ltd. was incorporated in 2004 and is based in Princeton, New Jersey.