Comparing Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD) & Its Rivals

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IRWD) is one of 245 publicly-traded companies in the “MED – DRUGS” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Ironwood Pharmaceuticals to similar businesses based on the strength of its profitability, valuation, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals	1	4	2	1	2.38
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Competitors	2741	3989	10239	458	2.48

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals currently has a consensus price target of $4.93, suggesting a potential upside of 60.95%. As a group, “MED – DRUGS” companies have a potential upside of 76.65%. Given Ironwood Pharmaceuticals’ peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Ironwood Pharmaceuticals has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Volatility & Risk

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 0.24, indicating that its share price is 76% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals’ peers have a beta of -0.51, indicating that their average share price is 151% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

44.2% of shares of all “MED – DRUGS” companies are owned by institutional investors. 12.7% of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.6% of shares of all “MED – DRUGS” companies are owned 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.

Profitability

This table compares Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals	8.11%	-13.72%	10.95%
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Competitors	-17,336.91%	-170.62%	-15.42%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals	$296.15 million	$24.02 million	23.54
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Competitors	$1.19 billion	$100.16 million	-4.40

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Ironwood Pharmaceuticals is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals peers beat Ironwood Pharmaceuticals on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a healthcare company, focuses on the development and commercialization of gastrointestinal (GI) products. It markets linaclotide, a guanylate cyclase type-C (GC-C) agonist for the treatment of adults suffering from irritable bowel syndrome with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation under the LINZESS name in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and China, as well as under the CONSTELLA name in the Canada and European countries. The company is also developing IW-3300, a GC-C agonist for the treatment of visceral pain conditions, including interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome and endometriosis; Apraglutide, a next-generation, long-acting synthetic peptide analog of glucagon-like peptide-2, as a differentiated therapeutic for rare diseases, including short bowel syndrome dependent on parenteral support and acute graft versus host disease; and CNP-104, an immune nanoparticle for the treatment of primary biliary cholangitis. The company has strategic partnerships with AbbVie Inc., AstraZeneca AB, and Astellas Pharma Inc. for the development and commercialization of linaclotide. The company was formerly known as Microbia, Inc. and changed its name to Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in April 2008. Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.