Investing in biotech stocks can be a very risky venture. For investors, a safer approach may be to buy shares of a company that indirectly benefits from growth in that sector. That's the appeal of Syneos Health (NASDAQ: SYNH).
The company helps biotech companies with clinical studies and provides consulting services. It's also known as a contract research organization (CRO). With a market cap of around $7 billion, it's still a fairly modestly-sized company that may be a good alternative for investors who don't want to take on a lot of risk. Let's take a look at how Syneos' stock has performed and whether it's a good option for investors today.
Syneos has achieved impressive results over the years, with its revenue more than doubling from $1.6 billion in 2016 to $4.4 billion in 2018. However, its growth rate has started to stumble in 2019. During the first nine months of 2019, the company generated revenue of $3.5 billion, an increase of only 6.7% from the prior-year period. While it's still a good rate of growth, it may be a bit challenging to win growth investors over with those numbers. The company does have a backlog of revenue of more than $8.3 billion as of Sept. 30, 2019, although that's only 6.5% higher than the same time last year. Syneos only expects to recognize $0.98 billion of that before the end of 2019.
Source Fool.com