NEW YORK – Investment bank Evercore ISI said Monday that it has initiated coverage of Bio-Techne with an Outperform rating on its stock and a price target of $75 per share.
In an investment note, analyst Daniel Markowitz wrote that Bio-Techne is a "premium growth asset" with a strong core business along with growth verticals like cell and gene therapy, proteomic analytical instruments, spatial biology, and precision diagnostics tools.
Markowitz said he expects earnings-per-share growth in the high-teens percentage range. Although there are macroeconomic headwinds that could have "outsized impact" on the firm's fiscal Q3 2025 results, such as the proposed budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health, Markowitz said the stock reaction is "extremely overblown."
The firm's stock has declined 20 percent since President Donald Trump issued orders limiting NIH’s functions, but Markowitz noted that this marks a "nice entry point as we look for growth acceleration" and margins to expand. The NIH headwind is expected to have about 1 percent negative impact on revenues and approximately 3 percent negative impact on earnings per share, he wrote.
Bio-Techne is also well positioned to benefit from the long-term growth in the cell and gene therapy market and has access to "steady end markets with a proven track record" within its core products business, he added. In addition, Bio-Techne's spatial biology offerings are better suited for the translational and clinical settings compared to competitors, and he anticipates growth in the mid-teens percentage range for the spatial biology business.
On the precision diagnostics side, Markowitz said that the market served by its ExoDx Prostate test is currently underpenetrated and that the firm has good traction in both volumes and price.
The key risks for the company are macroeconomic headwinds, including potential NIH cuts, growth hiccups in the cell and gene therapy market, rising competition in its core products business, and the potential inferiority of the exosome approach used in its ExoDx business, which would lead to profitability issues, Markowitz wrote.
Overall, he expects Bio-Techne's business to grow in the low double-digit percent range through fiscal year 2028.