While growth stocks often show exceptional top-line acceleration and a mere promise of profitability further down the road, some young companies have already reached that mark. That's true for Veeva Systems (VEEV -0.42%) and Progyny (PGNY -0.47%). Both bring much-needed solutions to their respective healthcare niches -- plus profits for their shareholders.
Yet, today's volatile stock market has hammered their share prices. Could this be a good opportunity for investors to at least consider dollar-cost-averaging into these two stocks in 2022 and beyond? Let's take a look.
Veeva: Riding healthcare's digitization
Veeva Systems offers life science companies an array of cloud solutions that run the gamut from clinical trial data management to marketing and customer relationship management tools. The company's two operating segments are R&D Solutions and Commercial Solutions, which respectively grew sales by 30% and 8% year over year in the latest quarter.
While this top-line growth seems satisfactory, a deceleration in Commercial Solutions has spooked the markets as advertising budgets continue to be tightened across the broader macro environment. This slowdown has helped send the company's shares sliding around 38% year to date.
However, Veeva's R&D Solutions have remained a bright spot. Using its data analytics and numerous data applications, the Veeva Developement Cloud helps life sciences companies with their operations' regulatory, quality, and safety standards when developing new treatments.
Moreover, thanks to its land-and-expand approach with its specific solutions, Veeva's leadership position in its space offers intriguing upside over the long haul as its existing customers add more products. Oftentimes, Veeva lands a new customer that is only interested in one specific product of theirs but will gradually expand and begin using additional products once they are tied into Veeva's ecosystem.
Riding this business model to success, the company has not only seen impressive top-line growth over the last decade but even more significant improvements in gross profits and net income.
VEEV Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts
Largely thanks to the company's land and expand model, each customer brought in becomes more valuable over time as it adds new products, helping to boost margins over the long term even as the topline may continue to grow more slowly.
Management is guiding for a 16% increase in billings for 2023. Meanwhile, the stock is trading near its lowest price-to-earnings ratio of the last five years. For these reasons and its undeniably steady and vital operations, Veeva deserves consideration from investors.
Progyny's fertility services benefit all involved
Driven by its mission "to make dreams of parenthood come true through healthy, timely, and supported fertility journeys," benefits-management company Progyny is one of the easiest stocks to root for today. Working closely with its enterprise customers, Progyny helps businesses save money on their healthcare plans while bringing life-changing outcomes to many employees who struggle with fertility.
Thanks to this win-win for both businesses and their employees, Progyny has seen a pretty rapid uptake, posting 52% sales growth for the second quarter of 2022, year over year, ending with $195 million in revenue and $9 million in net income. Riding this incredible growth, the stock has more than doubled since its 2019 IPO, despite the turbulent markets in 2022.
As roughly half of the businesses in the United States still don't have a fertility benefit for their employees, the fertility market's 9% annual growth rate over the last decade looks poised to continue far into the future. Furthermore, despite the company's rapid growth, of the 8,000 companies in the U.S. with 1,000 or more employees, only 3% are currently using Progyny's services.
While this sounds great, what will keep bringing new customers to Progyny's offerings, you may ask? Consider these outcomes from the company's services:
Chart Source: Progyny's JP Morgan Presentation Note: Progyny represents Progyny in-network provider clinic averages for Progyny members only based on the 12-month period ended December 31, 2020. For each Progyny outcome presented, the p-value when compared to the national average is <0.0001. 1 Calculated based on the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, or SART, 2018 National Summary Report, finalized in 2021 2 Calculated based on CDC, 2019 National Summary and Clinic Data Sets, published in 2021
With these encouraging statistical outcomes, perhaps it is no surprise that the company maintains a great 81 Net Promoter Score (NPS). Rated on a scale of negative 100 to 100, NPS measures how likely a customer is to recommend a product to a friend, with a positive number generally considered good -- making Progyny's mark astounding.
Thanks to these improved fertility outcomes for their employees, businesses benefit from happier workers and lower costs by realizing healthier pregnancy outcomes, fewer newborn intensive care unit stays, and medication cost savings using Progyny's Rx services.
Trading with a price-to-sales ratio of 7, Progyny is not undervalued by any traditional valuation methods, but it is near its lowest mark since its IPO.
PGNY PS Ratio data by YCharts.
With management guiding for 50% to 55% revenue growth for 2022, Progyny's early profitability and remaining growth runway and tailwinds give it the hallmarks of an unstoppable stock to consider adding to today.
