LH

Bio-Techne Corporation TECH reported adjusted earnings per share of 52 cents for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which dropped 1.9% year over year and came in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The quarter's adjustments eliminated the impact of certain items, including amortization of intangibles and Wilson Wolf intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, certain litigation charges, stock-based compensation, restructuring and restructuring-related costs, and investment-related losses, among others. GAAP EPS was 35 cents compared to a loss of 11 cents in the prior-year quarter. For the full year, adjusted EPS of $1.93 increased 0.5% from the fiscal 2025 adjusted figure and surpassed the consensus mark by 1%. In the fiscal fourth quarter, net sales came in at $321.2 million, up 1% year over year on a reported basis and 3% on an organic basis. The figure surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.26%. Full-year revenues were $1.22 billion, remaining flat from fiscal 2025 on both a reported and organic basis. Foreign currency had a favorable impact of 2%, while a business held for sale had an unfavorable impact of 2%. The metric came 0.8% above the consensus mark. Following the announcement, TECH shares edged up 0.1% to close yesterday’s session at $72.23. Within Protein Sciences, Bio-Techne recorded revenues of $231.2 million, up 2% year over year from $226.5 million. Organic revenues increased 1%, while foreign currency had a favorable impact of 1%. Bio-Techne Corp price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Bio-Techne Corp Quote Within Diagnostics and Spatial Biology, revenues were $90.1 million, roughly flat from $89.7 million in the prior-year quarter. Organic revenues increased 8%, while the held-for-sale business had an unfavorable impact of 8%. Bio-Techne’s gross profit increased 6.3% year over year to $211.4 million. The gross margin expanded 310 basis points (bps) to 65.8% as the cost of sales declined 7.1% to $109.8 million. Adjusted gross margin, however, contracted 80 basis points (bps) to 69.2%. Selling, general and administrative expenses declined 42.4% to $113.2 million. Research and development expenses totaled $23.9 million, down 8.0% year over year. Total operating expenses fell 38.4% to $137.1 million from $222.7 million in the prior-year quarter. The company generated operating income of $74.3 million in the fiscal fourth quarter compared to an operating loss of $23.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Bio-Techne exited fiscal 2026 with cash and equivalents of $264.7 million compared with $162.2 million at the end of fiscal 2025. Long-term debt obligations totaled $200 million compared with $346 million at the end of the prior fiscal year. Cumulative net cash provided by operating activities was $292.1 million at the end of fiscal 2026 compared with $287.6 million a year ago. On June 25, 2026, Bio-Techne entered into an agreement to be acquired by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, for $73 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $11.3 billion. Management said it continues to make progress toward completing the transaction and expects the combination to create opportunities for the company’s customers and employees. In light of the announced deal, Bio-Techne is no longer holding investor conference calls for quarterly results. Bio-Techne exited the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 with in-line earnings, while revenues surpassed estimates. Protein Sciences posted modest growth, supported by underlying organic gains, though unfavorable volume and product mix pressured segment profitability. Diagnostics and Spatial Biology delivered stronger organic growth and improved profitability, helped by favorable volume trends, ongoing profitability initiatives and the Exosome Diagnostics divestiture. Meanwhile, the contraction in adjusted gross margin during the quarter is discouraging. Bio-Techne currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has a historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Bio-Techne Corp (TECH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Alcon Inc. ALC delivered second-quarter 2026 core earnings per share (EPS) of 84 cents, up 10.5% year over year. The figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 9.09%. The company reports core results based on non-IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) measures. In the second quarter, EPS was nil compared with 35 cents in the year-ago quarter. Net sales of $2.78 billion rose 8% and topped the consensus estimate by 0.58%. Following the announcement, ALC's stock price rose 3.2% during the after-market trading session yesterday. Alcon’s Surgical sales amounted to $1.57 billion, up 8% year over year on a reported basis and 7% at constant currency. Within this, Implantables net sales increased 1% at constant currency to $466 million, primarily driven by strong performance of PanOptix Pro, partially offset by lower sales in surgical glaucoma and competitive pressures. Consumables net sales rose 5% at constant currency to $825 million, driven by procedural growth and price increases despite continued softness in the cataract market. Equipment/Other net sales jumped 25% at constant currency to $279 million, led by recent equipment launches, including the Unity platform. Alcon price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Alcon Quote Within Vision Care, total sales came to $1.21 billion, up 8% year over year on a reported basis and 7% at constant currency. Contact Lenses net sales rose 5% to $726 million, reflecting product innovation and price increases, partially offset by declines in legacy products. Ocular Health sales increased 12% at constant currency to $486 million, primarily led by Alcon’s portfolio of dry-eye products, including Tryptyr and Systane. The cost of net sales in the second quarter was $1.13 billion, down 5.5% year over year. Gross profit rose 20.7% to $1.68 billion. The gross margin expanded 630 basis points (bps) to 60.2%. SG&A expenses increased 10.8% year over year, while R&D expenses surged 170.6%, largely reflecting the PowerVision-related impairment charge. The operating margin contracted 920 bps in the second quarter to 0.4%. Alcon exited the second quarter of 2026 with cash and cash equivalents of $1.36 billion compared with $1.58 billion at March-end. The cumulative net cash flow from operating activities at the end of the second quarter was $928 million compared with $889 million in the year-ago period. Free cash flow totaled $693 million compared with $681 million a year ago. Alcon maintained its 2026 constant-currency net sales growth outlook of 5%-7%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 revenues is pegged at $11.08 billion, up 7.3% from the 2025 levels. The company lifted core diluted EPS growth guidance to 12%-15% from the previous 10%-13% range. The consensus mark for the company’s 2026 earnings stands at $3.50 per share, indicating 14% growth. Alcon ended the second quarter of 2026 with both earnings and revenues surpassing their respective estimates. Both top and bottom lines improved on a year-over-year basis. Equipment/Other sales benefited from recent launches, including the Unity platform, while Ocular Health growth was driven by the dry-eye portfolio, including Tryptyr and Systane. The raised EPS guidance for the year is also encouraging. However, Implantables continued to face competitive pressures, while softness in the cataract procedure market remained a headwind. Alcon currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has a historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Alcon (ALC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Insulet Corporation PODD reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.66, up 41.5% year over year. The bottom line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 15.28%. GAAP EPS came in at $1.37 compared with the year-ago quarter’s figure of 32 cents. Revenues of $801.7 million rose 23.5% and surpassed the consensus mark by 1.89%, reflecting broad-based Omnipod demand and favorable price mix. Following the announcement on Aug. 5, PODD shares have dropped nearly 20% to end the session at $133.26. Total Omnipod revenues advanced 24.6% to $795.9 million. U.S. Omnipod revenues increased 20.1% year over year to $544.1 million. Management cited continued demand across type 1 and type 2 customers, with more than 40% of U.S. new customer starts coming from people with type 2 diabetes. Insulet Corporation price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Insulet Corporation Quote International Omnipod revenues climbed 35.5% to $251.8 million, or 32.9% at constant currency. Growth was driven primarily by volume and continued favorable price, and mix realization. Omnipod 5 also became the top insulin pump for new users in Australia, while the company recently launched in Spain. Adjusted gross margin reached 72.9%, up 320 basis points (bps) year over year. The improvement reflected manufacturing productivity gains at the Acton and Malaysia facilities, positive pricing and higher volumes. Adjusted operating margin expanded 140 bps to 19.3%. Research and development expenses rose 20% to $88.1 million, while selling, general and administrative expenses increased 33.8% to $344.8 million, reflecting investments in the U.S. sales force, customer support and market development. Insulet exited the second quarter of 2026 with cash and cash equivalents of $534.9 million compared with $480.4 million at March-end. Cumulative net cash provided by operating activities at the end of the second quarter was $202.2 million compared with $260.3 million in the year-ago period. Insulet now expects 2026 total company revenue growth of 20%-22% at constant currency, down from the prior 21%-23% range. Total Omnipod growth is projected at 21%-23% (previously, 22%-24%), while Drug Delivery revenues are expected to decline around 40% compared with the earlier expectation of a roughly 50% drop. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2026 revenues is pegged at $3.28 billion, up 21% from the 2025 levels. Adjusted EPS is now projected to grow at least 30%, up from the prior expectation of more than 25%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the same stands at $6.51, up 5%. For the third quarter, total company revenues are expected to increase 17.5%-19.5% at constant currency. Total Omnipod growth is projected at 18%-20%, while Drug Delivery is expected to be approximately 20% year over year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues and EPS is pegged at $835.4 million and $1.59, respectively. Insulet delivered better-than-expected earnings and revenues in the second quarter of 2026. The company witnessed strong demand for Omnipod across both the U.S. and international markets, along with a benefit from favorable price mix. Global new customer starts increased both sequentially and year over year, resulting in the second highest quarter ever. The expansion of adjusted gross and operating margins is also encouraging. Lower-than-expected retention and utilization among type 2 customers prompted Insulet to lower its full-year U.S. Omnipod and total revenue growth outlook. Insulet currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Insulet Corporation (PODD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Resmed Inc. RMD reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings of $2.95 per share, which rose 16% year over year and outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.72%. For the full year, the adjusted EPS of $11.17 topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.3%. The metric increased 17% from the fiscal 2025 adjusted figure. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenues rose 9% to $1.46 billion and beat the consensus mark by 0.17%. Full-year revenues were $5.65 billion, a 10.9% improvement on a reported basis from fiscal 2025 (up 8% on a constant currency basis). The metric came in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Following the announcement yesterday, RMD shares dropped 2.8% in the after-market session. Total revenues improved 9% (up 8% at CER) from the prior-year period’s level to $1.29 billion. Within this business, Total Devices revenues were $750 million, up 8% (7% at CER). This includes an increase of 6% year over year in the Americas to $459 million and a jump of 12% (9% at CER) in the Rest of World to $291 million. ResMed Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | ResMed Inc. Quote Total Masks and other revenues were $542 million, up 11% (10% at CER). This includes a rise of 10% year over year in the Americas to $394 million and 16% growth (12% at CER) in the Rest of World to $148 million. Revenues in this segment increased 3% year over year (up 2% at CER) to $172 million. Growth from MEDIFOX DAN and Brightree was partially offset by declines in MatrixCare. In the fiscal fourth quarter, the company’s cost of sales (excluding amortization of acquired intangibles and the Astral field safety notification expenses) totaled $552.2 million, up 6.2% year over year. Adjusted gross margin was 62.3%, reflecting an expansion of 90 basis points (bps), as supply-chain productivity and efficiency gains more than offset inflation. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased 9.6% year over year to $290.7 million. Research and development expenses jumped 22.3% to $105.7 million, primarily due to investments in next-generation devices and masks and AI-driven patient workflow solutions. The adjusted operating profit was $515 million in the quarter, up 8% from the year-ago quarter’s level. The adjusted operating margin contracted 10 bps year over year to 35.2%. Resmed exited the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 with cash and cash equivalents of $1.47 billion compared with $1.21 billion at the end of fiscal 2025. The cumulative net cash provided by operating activities for fiscal 2026 was $1.81 billion compared with $1.75 billion in the year-ago period. The company paid out $87.1 million in dividends in the fiscal fourth quarter and also repurchased approximately 972,000 shares for consideration of $200 million as part of its ongoing capital management. For fiscal 2027, Resmed expects core constant-currency revenue growth of 5% to 7%. The outlook includes an approximately 130 bps, or $75 million, headwind from suspended Astral sales.  Reported revenues are projected between $5.75 billion and $5.85 billion. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year revenues is currently pegged at $6.03 billion. Adjusted EPS is expected between $12.00 and $12.25, implying reported growth of about 7% to 10%. Excluding roughly 30 cents of dilution from the MatrixCare divestiture and 20 cents from Noctrix, core earnings growth is projected at 12% to 14%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year earnings currently stands at $12.02 per share. Resmed closed fiscal 2026 on a strong note, with both earnings and revenues beating respective estimates. Performance reflected sustained demand across sleep devices, masks, accessories and software solutions, along with continued productivity gains. The company also benefited from growth in MEDIFOX DAN and Brightree offerings. Resmed continued the global rollout of the AirSense 11 platform and expanded its portfolio of novel fabric-based masks, including the AirTouch N30i and AirTouch F30i. However, weakness in MatrixCare and lower life-support device revenues remained as headwinds. The company completed the acquisition of Noctrix Health, expanding its clinical sleep health portfolio into an adjacent area of significant unmet need — the treatment of Restless Legs Syndrome. Resmed also partnered with ??URA to expand access to sleep health education and pathways to care. Resmed currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report ResMed Inc. (RMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. PBH posted first-quarter fiscal 2027 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 98 cents, which jumped 3.2% year over year and topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 10.11%. Revenues of $265.71 million improved 6.5% and beat the consensus mark by 6.18%. Following the announcement yesterday, PBH shares rose 0.5% in the after-market session. North American OTC Healthcare revenues increased 6.4% year over year to $226.2 million. The gain reflected strong organic sales growth in Gastrointestinal, Dermatological and Cough, Cold & Allergy, along with contribution from the newly created Wellness, Sleep & Other category. Management highlighted continued strength in Dramamine and Fleet, while Compound W drove Dermatological growth. Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. Quote International OTC Healthcare revenues increased 6.9% to $39.5 million, aided by a $1.4 million contribution from the acquired Breathe Right brand. On an organic basis, International revenues declined 2.1%. Management said positive consumption trends were offset by distributor order timing and continues to expect the segment to return to its long-term organic revenue growth target of 5% or more for fiscal 2027. Adjusted gross margin was 55%, down 120 basis points (bps) year over year. Management attributed the year-over-year pressure mainly to higher transportation costs and mix, while noting that the margin was roughly flat sequentially and in line with expectations. During the quarter, advertising and marketing expenses declined 0.8% to $34.7 million, while general and administrative expenses increased 52.2% to $43.3 million. Adjusted operating income totaled approximately $81.0 million, up 5.3% year over year. The adjusted operating margin contracted about 30 bps to 30.5% from 30.8% a year ago. Prestige Consumer exited the fiscal first quarter of 2027 with cash and cash equivalents of $89.1 million compared with $63.9 million at the end of fiscal 2026. Net cash provided by operating activities totaled $70.8 million, down from $79.0 million in the prior-year period. Prestige raised fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $1.290-$1.315 million (previously $1.100-$1.121 million). The increase entirely reflects the Breathe Right and LaCorium acquisitions, while organic revenue growth guidance remains unchanged at 1%-3%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is currently pegged at $1.10 billion. Adjusted earnings guidance increased to $4.55-$4.65 from the earlier $4.42-$4.51 range. The Zacks Consensus Estimate was pegged at $4.45 for the metric. For the fiscal second quarter, management expects revenues of $328-$331 million and adjusted earnings of $1.06-$1.08 per share. The consensus mark for second-quarter top and bottom lines stands at $276.41 million and $1.06, respectively. The Breathe Right portfolio acquisition closed in June and is expected to generate about $200 million in annual revenues. Management said the major integration milestones are largely complete, with the business operating through Prestige’s systems and warehouse network. LaCorium Health closed in July and is expected to contribute about $40 million in annualized revenues. Prestige plans to integrate the Australian therapeutic skin care business over the balance of fiscal 2027 and expects future opportunities from distributor optimization, sales integration and other operating efficiencies. Prestige Consumer exited the fiscal first quarter with both earnings and revenues beating estimates. Performance reflected broad-based strength across the portfolio, wherein Gastrointestinal and Dermatological brands led growth, while TheraTears and Debrox helped offset continued Clear Eyes supply variability. The newly closed acquisitions of LaCorium Health and the Breathe Right portfolio bring distinct advantages that are expected to help enhance its business for the long term. Prestige Consumer is also investing in its Pillar5 sterile ophthalmic facility to strengthen supply quality and expand capacity. However, the contraction of adjusted gross and operating margins in the quarter is discouraging. Prestige Consumer currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. (PBH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

CVS Health Corporation CVS reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.58 per share, up 42.5% year over year. The figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 37.97%. Revenues rose 7.3% to $106.10 billion and surpassed the consensus mark by 5.91%. The upside reflected stronger adjusted operating income across all operating segments, led by Health Care Benefits. Medical membership was 26.0 million at quarter-end. Following the announcement, CVS shares climbed 1% in the pre-market session today. Health Care Benefits revenues increased 3.5% year over year to $37.54 billion. The rise was driven by growth in the Government business, partly offset by the company’s exit from the individual exchange business in 2026. Health Services revenues rose 11.5% to $51.80 billion. The improvement was supported by pharmacy drug mix and brand inflation, partially offset by continued pharmacy client price improvements. CVS Health Corporation price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | CVS Health Corporation Quote Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness revenues jumped 0.7% to $33.82 billion. Growth from pharmacy drug mix, higher prescription volume, Rite Aid asset contributions and brand inflation was largely offset by regulatory-related price reductions, generic drug introductions and reimbursement pressure. CVS Health’s gross profit, calculated as total revenues less cost of products sold and health care costs, came in at $15.75 billion, up 15.9% year over year. Gross margin expanded 110 basis points (bps) year over year to 14.8%. Operating income surged 97.5% to $4.70 billion, outpacing revenue growth. The improvement reflected higher adjusted operating income across all operating segments and the absence of $833 million in legacy litigation charges recorded in the prior-year quarter. Operating margin expanded 200 bps to 4.4%. Adjusted operating income rose 35.4% to $5.16 billion. Adjusted operating margin improved 100 bps to 4.9%, aided by operating expenses declining to $11.05 billion from $11.21 billion in the year-ago quarter. CVS Health ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $11.33 billion, up from $9.54 billion at March-end. Long-term debt stood at $59.45 billion, down from $60.53 billion at the end of first quarter. Cumulative net cash provided by operating activities was $10.59 billion compared with $6.45 billion in the prior-year period. CVS Health also paid $1.73 billion in dividends during the first half of 2026. Continued debt reduction and disciplined capital returns remain important watch items as the company advances its operating recovery. Management raised its full-year 2026 targets following the quarter’s performance. CVS lifted its GAAP diluted EPS outlook to a range of $6.84-$7.04 from $6.24-$6.44 and boosted adjusted earnings guidance to $7.90-$8.10 from $7.30-$7.50. The Zacks Consensus Estimate expects 2026 adjusted EPS to be $7.46. Revenues for the year are projected to be at least $414 billion, up from the earlier projection of at least $405 billion. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the same stands at $409.0 billion. The company also increased its cash flow from operations outlook to at least $11.5 billion from at least $9.5 billion. CVS said the update reflects improved expectations for the Health Care Benefits and Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness segments while maintaining a cautious view for the remainder of the year, given elevated cost trends and potential macroeconomic headwinds. CVS Health exited the second quarter with earnings and revenues beating respective estimates. Health Care Benefits performance was supported by strength in the Government business. Health Services also maintained solid top-line momentum, aided by pharmacy drug mix and brand inflation. Within Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness, prescription growth benefited from incremental volume tied to CVS Health’s Rite Aid asset acquisitions. The raised top and bottom-line guidance for the year is highly encouraging. Among the key developments are the introduction of a comprehensive approach to GLP-1 support across the CVS Pharmacy and MinuteClinic locations. Aetna launched its second-generation Aetna Claims Assist Manager, an AI-powered agentic claims advisor platform designed to streamline claims processing and improve payment accuracy. CVS Health currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2, reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report CVS Health Corporation (CVS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET Senior Vice President, Investor Relations - Dewey Steadman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Adam Schechter Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - Julia Wang Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2026 Labcorp Holdings Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Dewey Steadman, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Dewey Steadman: Good morning, and welcome to Labcorp's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Webcast. With me today are Adam Schechter, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Julia Wang, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, in the Events section of the Labcorp Investor Relations website at ir.labcorp.com, we posted both our press release and a supplemental financial presentation with additional information on our business and operations. We will also post a replay of this webcast on the IR website for 1 year. On today's webcast, we will focus on our adjusted or non-GAAP results for the second quarter of 2026, our capital allocation strategy and our updated financial guidance for the full year 2026. Our GAAP results and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are available in today's earnings release and the supplemental financial presentation. Please see the Use of Adjusted Measures section in the supplemental presentation for more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures. In today's remarks, the term organic growth excludes the impact from acquisitions, divestitures, and currency, as well as other strategic actions taken in the Early Development business. Our remarks will also include forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements about our updated 2026 financial guidance and the assumptions underlying that guidance; the expected impact of various factors on our business, operating and financial results, cash flows and financial condition; global economic and market conditions; our future business strategies; the expected savings, benefits, and synergies from acquisitions, strategic actions, and partnerships; and our potential opportunities for future growth. Each of these forward-looking statements is subject to change based upon various factors, many of which are beyond our control. More information is included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q and in the company's other filings with the SEC. We have no obligation to provide any updates to these forward-looking statements, even if our expectations change. Now, I'll turn the call over to Labcorp's Chairman and CEO, Adam Schechter. Adam? Adam Schechter: Thank you, Dewey, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today to review our second quarter 2026 results. Labcorp delivered another very strong quarter driven by solid revenue growth, margin expansion, and progress across our strategic priorities. Our Diagnostics and Biopharma Laboratory Services businesses both performed well, advancing strategic initiatives and expanding technological capabilities that continue to drive growth. Key accomplishments include broadening our specialty test portfolio; expanding partnerships with leading health systems, biopharmaceutical clients, and regional and local laboratories; continuing to grow our consumer business; and increasing the use of advanced technologies across the company. Turning to our enterprise financials for the second quarter. Revenue grew 6% to $3.7 billion. Margins improved 70 basis points to 15.8%. Adjusted earnings per share grew 15% to $4.99, and free cash flow was $314 million. Moving to our segments. Diagnostics revenue increased 5.5% to $2.9 billion. Biopharma Laboratory Services revenue increased 6.5% to $836 million driven by strength in Central Laboratories, and our BLS book-to-bill was 1.14 in the quarter and 1.03 in the trailing 12 months. Julia will review our updated increased guidance in just a moment. Our results reflect the progress we've made across each of our strategic priorities, beginning with strengthening our leadership in specialty testing across oncology, neurology, autoimmune disease, and women's health. Collectively, in the first half of the year, these specialty areas delivered double-digit revenue growth and helped us to win new health system and provider customers. Laboratory testing plays a critical role in both drug development and in patient care, supporting earlier detection, diagnosis, therapy selection and ongoing disease monitoring, all of which support better health outcomes while enabling more informed clinical decision-making. In our Labcorp Oncology business, we expanded our portfolio across lung, colorectal, and prostate cancer, adding innovative screening, diagnostic and companion diagnostic testing solutions. We launched ColoSense nationwide, the first FDA-approved, RNA-based colorectal cancer screening test with an at-home collection. With Medicare and expanding commercial payer coverage, this test increases patient access to screening and enables earlier detection. And we entered into a clinical trial collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center to evaluate Labcorp's Plasma Detect Genome MRD in patients at risk of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer recurrence. We expanded nationwide access to Roche's FDA-approved companion diagnostic for people living with prostate cancer who will now be eligible for combination treatment with AstraZeneca's targeted therapy. And we added an advanced DPYD genotyping test to our portfolio that helps identify patients at risk for severe treatment-related toxicity from certain chemotherapies. Beyond our priority specialty areas, we continue to advance testing solutions across a broad range of important health conditions. We signed an agreement to broaden nationwide access to myOLARIS-KTdx, a first-of-its-kind noninvasive test that supports surveillance of graft injury, including rejection following a kidney transplant. For patients at risk of liver disease, Labcorp's blood-based test, NASHnext, secured Medicare coverage beginning in mid-August, expanding access for more patients and enabling earlier detection of MASH. Additionally, new peer-reviewed research demonstrated the potential of Labcorp's advanced noninvasive blood-based diagnostic tools, including MVX and NIS2+ to improve risk assessment and to provide early identification of patients at risk for liver disease progression. Moving now to the strategic priority of being a partner of choice for health systems and regional and local laboratories. These partnerships play an important role in providing health systems and providers greater access to our high-quality, cost-effective laboratory services, to our scientific expertise and to our broad testing portfolio, including specialty diagnostics. In the quarter, we completed the acquisition of select outreach laboratory services from Parkview Health in Indiana and Ohio and the acquisition of Tribal Diagnostics, a clinical laboratory serving communities in Oklahoma and Texas. And once again, we were recently awarded a Department of Defense contract to provide laboratory testing for service members and their families across military hospitals worldwide. We continue to have a very robust pipeline of deals and to support our long-term growth strategy, and we look forward to sharing more of those moving forward. Turning to the consumer health space. Our consumer business continued to deliver strong double-digit growth, driven by increasing demand for consumer-initiated testing, innovative offerings and compelling digital experiences. And with the recent announcement of our Marker by Labcorp Genetic Health Panel through Labcorp OnDemand, consumers will be able to get biomarker and genetic testing and insights from a single trusted source. We also launched Canada's first at-home self-collection test to measure women's fertility-related hormones and men's testosterone levels. Additionally, our recently launched AI-powered app, MyLabcorp, has already begun to be downloaded by millions of consumers. The app allows patients to schedule appointments to view their test results and to gain deeper insights into their health using AI. These differentiated innovations, combined with our leading science, are creating personalized experiences that consumers can trust. We continue to make strong progress on the strategic priority of shaping our future through technology and innovation to improve the customer experience, to enhance productivity and to transform our business. In the quarter, we broadened our collaboration with Epic, which will make Labcorp's 6,500-plus diagnostic tests available on Epic's Aura platform. This collaboration will make it easier for health care providers using Epic Aura to access Labcorp's test, including genetics, oncology and other advanced diagnostics. We also enhanced the experience at Labcorp's patient service centers through expanded appointment availability, streamlined scheduling and proactive rescheduling reminders and assistance. These are just a few examples of how we're advancing our strategic priorities and serving our customers. Our results this quarter and our progress against our strategy were made possible by our teams who carry out our mission each and every day. Their impact was recognized by Time, where we were honored to be named again as one of the world's most impactful companies. We were also included on the Wall Street Journal's Best Companies for the Future list, recognizing our commitment to innovation with long-term value creation and positive impact. With that, I'll turn the call over to Julia to discuss our financial results in more detail. Julia Wang: Thank you, Adam. Our second quarter results reflect strong momentum and continued execution of our strategy. Enterprise revenue grew 5.8% versus the prior year. Enterprise adjusted operating margin expanded 70 basis points to 15.8%, primarily driven by organic revenue growth. Adjusted earnings per share grew 14.9%, and we generated $314 million in free cash flow. We also remain active on capital deployment. We invested $226 million in acquisitions, repurchased $354 million of shares and paid $59 million in dividends. Following the retirement of $500 million in senior notes in the second quarter, we had $142 million in cash and $5.9 billion in total debt at the end of the quarter. In July, our Board of Directors approved an increase of $1 billion in the company's share repurchase authorization, bringing the total authorization outstanding to $1.4 billion. Moving to more details on the quarter. Enterprise revenue was $3.7 billion, up 5.8% from the second quarter of 2025. Organic revenue growth was 4.2%. Net acquisitions contributed 1.2% growth. Foreign currency translation contributed 0.4%. Adjusted operating income was $589 million or 15.8% of revenue compared to $532 million or 15.1% of revenue last year. The adjusted tax rate was 23%, in line with last year. We continue to expect our full year adjusted tax rate to be approximately 23%. Adjusted EPS was $4.99, up 14.9% from last year. Free cash flow was $314 million, compared to $543 million last year. The difference was primarily due to working capital timing and planned increases in capital expenditures. We continue to expect free cash flow in the range of $1.24 billion to $1.36 billion for full year 2026. Turning to our segments. Diagnostics segment delivered another strong quarter. Revenue was $2.9 billion, up 5.5% compared to the prior year. Volume growth contributed 3% and price mix contributed 2.5%. We delivered organic revenue growth of 3.6%, consisting of 1.8% volume growth and 1.8% favorable price mix, which was largely driven by higher tests per accession. Revenue from acquisitions contributed 1.9%, consisting of 1.3% volume growth and 0.6% favorable price mix. Diagnostics segment adjusted operating income was $523 million or 18% of segment revenue compared to $483 million or 17.6% of revenue last year. Adjusted operating margin expanded 50 basis points due to organic growth and operating efficiencies. BLS segment revenue was $836 million, up 6.5% compared to last year. Organic constant currency revenue growth was 6.2%, as a 1.8% benefit from foreign currency translation was partially offset by a 1.4% impact from our Early Development strategic actions. Within the BLS segment, on an organic constant currency basis, Central Lab Services delivered strong revenue growth of 7.6% and Early Development grew 2.7%. BLS segment adjusted operating income was $142 million or 17% of revenue, compared to $123 million or 15.7% of revenue last year. Adjusted operating margin expanded 130 basis points, driven by organic growth and operating efficiencies from the strategic actions we have taken in Early Development. All strategic actions have been announced and are largely complete. Our BLS segment ended the quarter with a backlog of $8.7 billion. We expect approximately $2.7 billion to convert into revenue over the next 12 months. Quarterly book-to-bill was strong at 1.14, bringing trailing 12-month book-to-bill to 1.03. Turning to our full year 2026 guidance. We are raising the midpoint of our enterprise revenue range and our adjusted EPS range by $42 million and $0.30, respectively. Enterprise revenue is expected to grow 5.4% to 6.3%, which represents a 30 basis point increase at the midpoint. The guidance continues to include a 40 basis point benefit from foreign currency translation. Diagnostics segment revenue is expected to grow 5.3% to 6%. This is a 20 basis point increase at the midpoint. We continue to expect the majority of growth to be driven by organic performance. BLS segment revenue is expected to grow 5.5% to 6.5%. We have raised the midpoint of our BLS revenue guidance by 140 basis points, driven by continued strength in Central Labs and a more favorable outlook for Early Development. The guidance continues to include a 150 basis point tailwind from foreign currency translation. For the full year, on an organic constant currency basis, we continue to expect Central Labs revenue to grow in the mid-single digits. We now expect Early Development revenue to grow in the low single digits. We continue to expect enterprise margin expansion with margins improving in both Diagnostics and BLS in 2026 versus 2025. Consistent with our prior expectations, BLS margin is expected to expand more than Diagnostics. This reflects continued strong top line growth in Central Labs and the benefits from the strategic actions in Early Development. At the enterprise level, we continue to benefit from our Launchpad initiative, which remains on track. Our adjusted EPS guidance range is $18.10 to $18.55 with an implied growth rate at the midpoint of more than 11%. Compared to prior guidance, we have narrowed the range and raised the midpoint by $0.30. Our free cash flow guidance range remains $1.24 billion to $1.36 billion. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately 4% of revenue. Our full year guidance assumes foreign exchange rates as of June 30, 2026. The guidance also reflects our current capital allocation assumptions, including the use of free cash flow for acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends. We remain focused on delivering profitable growth and strong free cash flow to generate long-term shareholder value. Now, I will turn the call back to Adam for closing remarks. Adam Schechter: Thank you, Julia. Let me close with a few takeaways. First, we delivered another strong quarter of financial performance, including solid revenue growth, significant margin expansion and double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Second, we strengthened our leadership in specialty testing and announced several important partnerships with health systems. And third, we are leveraging technology and AI to create differentiated customer experiences to enhance productivity and to transform our business. All of this has led to us increasing our full year revenue and EPS guidance. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our long-term growth trajectory. We are executing with discipline, investing in areas of significant opportunity and remain well positioned to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value to both customers and shareholders. Operator, we'll now take questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Lisa Gill of JPMorgan. Lisa Gill: Adam, I just really wanted to understand a couple of things when we look at the strong organic growth. You talked about specialty testing being double-digit growth. You talked about advancing strategic partnerships in the marketplace. Can you just talk about underlying what you're seeing from a utilization perspective, one? And then just on the back of that, I think previously, you had talked about a potential impact from changes of -- around ACA and Medicaid. Do you still have something in your guidance or anticipation that we could see some type of headwind because of changes to the exchanges in Medicaid? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thanks for the question, Lisa. I'll take the first part. I'll ask Julia to comment on ACA and what's built into the guidance. So Diagnostics had a very strong quarter. That's for sure. We had $2.9 billion in revenue, which increased 5.5% versus last year. And as you mentioned, it was strong organic growth. The organic growth was 3.6% and then just under 2% was due to acquisitions. If you take a further look, the volume growth was also good at 3% with the majority of that volume growth coming from organic growth. We're certainly seeing our specialty business grow faster than the routine business, and we expect to continue to see that. Importantly, when we have the specialty business and you look at an area like oncology, it's not just the oncology test, but it's the oncology patient. And if you look at an oncology patient, they tend to get many, many, many more tests than a typical patient over time. So that's why we also believe we're seeing tests per accession continue to increase as well. Julia Wang: Lisa, in terms of the ACA impact, previously, we provided an estimate of 30 basis points to the Diagnostics segment volume for full year 2026. At this point in time, we continue to believe that this assumption is appropriate, and we have incorporated it into the updated guidance that we just provided this morning. As you might recall, we shared on our last earnings call that the impact from ACA during Q1 was immaterial. Subsequently, in the second quarter, it was a slight headwind of about 20 to 30 basis points of the diagnostic volume. Now it is important to note that this particular payer cohort accounts for a very small percentage of our total diagnostic volume, which is less than 4% to 5%. Therefore, our expectation for the full year impact remains unchanged. But of course, we will continue to monitor closely and manage appropriately. Operator: And our next question comes from Kevin Caliendo of UBS. Kevin Caliendo: I want to dive a little bit into the organic volumes number and how to think about that relative to the markets? How are you faring in the retail segment? How are you faring hospital versus doc offices? And sort of what's embedded in that in terms of how you calculate volumes versus number of tests that you're doing? Is it sort of an apples-to-apples because we're hearing that there are more tests per accession. And I'm just trying to understand how to think about this organic -- your positioning in organic volumes versus the market versus your peers and how it's reported? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thanks, Kevin. So let me start, and I'll ask Julia to provide additional context. So first of all, the volume growth was 3%. So it remains strong. And the majority of that 1.8% was organic volume growth. That does not include the test per accession increases. So if you would increase that, you would actually see tests actually going up even more. We're doing very well. The market typically grows at 1% to 2%. So we're growing substantially more than the overall market. And I think a big part of that is some of the hospital deals that we're doing, the local and regional laboratory deals that we're doing that continue over time to give us additional growth opportunities. If I look in the overall market, we're doing very well in primary care. We're doing well in the hospital segment. And if you look at hospital reference testing, for example, we're actually even growing faster there than the overall segment. So I think we have some real strength if you look at reference testing as well. So overall, I'd say that it's a good organic growth, and that's why we were comfortable to raise the midpoint of the diagnostic revenue guidance by about 20 basis points, and we remain excited about the rest of the year. Julia Wang: Yes. Kevin, in terms of your question about the way that we account for volume for Diagnostics, it is beneficial to bring some clarity to that. As you know, we typically report that out in the measurement of accession. And then we would account for the number of tests, including the accession in the price mix calculation. However, if you step back and think about volume in the unit of test, you could potentially argue that the combination of the volume growth in accession combined with volume growth in number of tests is a more intrinsic representation of the volume growth. So with that being said, maybe I can give you a little bit more color. For example, in the second quarter, we just shared that the price mix growth for the Diagnostic business was about 2.5%. And out of that, the organic aspect of our business contributed 1.8% once again in terms of accession. But if you think about the test per accession growth, it's also another kind of majority of the contributor to the price mix improvement. So all in all, I would say, if you take the accession growth of 1.8% and 1.8% price mix contribution is almost 3.6% in the terminology of number of test growth. Now immediately post-COVID, we have seen significant growth in test per accession versus prior to COVID. But over time, we continue to see consistent and slight growth in test per accession quarter in and quarter out. Now longer term, we continue to believe that the mix growth will be supported by structural factors as well as our own strategic focus, as you've heard from Adam earlier, which, of course, include the considerations around the aging population, the health and wellness trend, the advancement in Diagnostics testing as well as the breadth of our testing menu and our focus on specialty testing. Operator: And our next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore ISI. Elizabeth Anderson: Maybe one on BLS. Obviously, nice to see this morning. If we think about Early Development, can you talk about from maybe a revenue perspective, like how much of the revenue improvement was sort of the end of the restructuring versus the end market improving there? Central Labs, obviously, continues to be strong. And then can you help us sort of decompose the bookings, just looking for a little bit more color there. Adam Schechter: Sure. So if you look at BLS revenue, it increased 6.5% versus last year. So it was very strong. And it was driven by Central Lab that's really performing well, represents about 70% of the BLS segment. And the Central Labs grew 10% or on organic constant currency, it was about 8%. If you look at Early Development, it was down 1% reported, but it was up 3% on an organic constant currency basis. So we've certainly seen that business do a bit better than it has in the prior year or 2. If you look at ED, we continue to look at RFPs, which are strong. We look at our win rate, which remains consistent. We're also seeing study starts to be a bit more on time. So we were able to raise the guidance, frankly, to single-digit growth for that business for this year versus prior, it was relatively flat. And that's based upon a strong book-to-bill. For Early Development, you might recall that within a year, you can have a study start and finish. So you typically have a lower book-to-bill overall for Early Development, but those studies can start and end in the same point in the year. The strength in our book-to-bill was really driven by Central Laboratories. And if you look at the Central Laboratories, typically, the book-to-bill is for future years. So the strength in our book-to-bill for the quarter of 1.14 or 1.03 trailing 12 months bodes well for the Central Laboratory business as we look into the future. Operator: And our next question comes from Michael Cherny of Leerink Partners. Michael Cherny: Maybe just one quick clarification and then a build on that. Just on the guidance update for Diagnostics segment, is the 20 basis points of volume organic or inorganic in terms of what's changed? And then along those lines, looking at the trend file you sent out, there was a shift higher in patient responsibility as a percent of total revenue versus clients and third-party. Anything specific to call out there in terms of what you're seeing? Adam Schechter: Yes. I would say -- I'll answer the second question first. If you look at some of the patient pay, typically, the second quarter has been a bit higher than other quarters. And patient pay includes a lot of things, co-pays, deductibles as well as patients buying direct. We have seen double-digit growth in our Labcorp OnDemand test, which will be included in patient self-pay. And the good news about that is patients pay upfront, so it doesn't increase bad debt. If you look at our bad debt, it remains consistent, and we haven't seen any significant increases there even with that patient pay. So the more growth we get from Labcorp OnDemand, you will see that fall into the patient pay. Julia Wang: Yes. And the only thing I would add on that patient responsibility and bad debt topic is that if you look at our bad debt as a percentage of revenue for the diagnostic business, it continues to be in line with prior year as well as historical benchmarks. So from that standpoint, we continue to work very hard on the collection efforts to ensure that we manage it very effectively. I think, Michael, the other question you have is as it relates to the midpoint of the revenue guide raise for Diagnostics. Now, as you might be familiar with our practice, at the beginning of the year, we generally would be planning for certain in-year revenue for deals that we might not necessarily have already inked, so to speak, but have line of sight. But once we got to a point where we feel much more confident about the ability to close and generate revenue in the year, we will move that to the respective segment. And in this particular case, we are moving that revenue expectation from corporate into the Diagnostics segment because at this moment, we feel more confident about our ability to deliver against that expectation. Operator: And our next question comes from Jack Meehan of Operon Research. Jack Meehan: I wanted to push a little bit more on the diagnostic lab organic growth. The 3.6%, that's nothing to scoff at here, but it comes after a notably stronger print from your closest peer. So I was just curious, like, as you kind of look at the landscape, how much of this delta do you think is either competitive or market or just like a conscious decision not to chase certain hospital arrangements that are lower margin or just something else like help us interpret it. Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you, Jack, for the question. And if you look at the Diagnostics business, as you said, 3.6% organic growth is a good number. But importantly, if you look at our margin, our margin for the quarter improved 50 basis points. And that is already after we've lapped Invitae. So that's -- and historically, people have said, well, you're lapping Invitae, of course, your margins improved. This is after that. So what we're doing is we're focusing on high-growth areas like the specialty oncology, women's health, autoimmune disease, and neurology. We're focusing on higher margin segments. And in some of the lower-margin segments such as some of the partnerships in the consumer area, we've not focused because we have so many other growth opportunities, including our Central Laboratory business, including some of the other hospital deals that we feel very confident with the guidance that we've given that it's a very high-quality, strong set of guidance that's not only good top line growth, but also with margin expansion. Julia Wang: Jack, to build on what Adam just shared, I'd like to provide some additional color as it relates to our margin progression. I would start by saying that we continue to be very pleased with our operating margin expansion trajectory. For perspective, Q2 of this year represents the fifth consecutive quarter that we have been able to expand our operating margin for the enterprise as well as for both of our operating segments. As we just shared in the release this morning, in the second quarter, we delivered 70 basis points of enterprise margin expansion versus prior year. And as Adam also pointed out, if you look at the segment, we improved about 50 basis points in Diagnostics, and we expanded the BLS segment margin by 130 basis points versus prior year. Now as you look at the full year 2026, consistent with our communications, we continue to expect another year of meaningful margin improvement in both segments. And we also continue to expect even greater margin expansion year-over-year by the BLS segment than the Diagnostics segment. So overall, I would say that as an enterprise, we have been highly focused on driving durable top line growth that is profitable. And our relentless focus has clearly been reflected in our financials, including the operating margin trajectory. Operator: And our next question comes from Michael Ryskin of Bank of America. Michael Ryskin: Maybe let's shift to specialty testing and oncology specifically. You talked about, I think, double-digit growth in specialty in the first half. I don't know if that accelerated or not in the second quarter. I think you only gave a first half number. But would just love to hear more about how that's doing, also double digit is sort of a broad range. What I'm trying to get at is sort of how impactful is that to the 3.6% organic growth that you've been talking about in the Dx business? How much that's moving the needle, whether it is some of the newer updates and portfolio expansions that you've talked about, whether it's ColoSense or some of the organic investments? And just sort of how much upside do you think that could be providing to the second half and beyond? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thank you for the question, Michael. As I think about oncology, we've made significant progress in that area over the years, whether it be in solid tumor capabilities or it be in liquid capabilities, whether it be through partnerships like screening with ColoSense or it be an MRD, where we've launched products for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, we continue to make extraordinary progress in bringing new tests to market in that area. Now when you do 750 million tests per year, it takes a lot to move the needle. And when you look at that 3.6%, you think about the 3.6% of the base, it still takes a lot to move that needle. There's no doubt that the oncology market will continue to grow well. We expect it to continue to grow 2 to 3x faster than the overall market. But what's really important is to think about the oncology patient versus just thinking about an individual oncology test. And let's say you do therapy selection for a patient and a patient ends up on an immunotherapy. The amount of tests that a patient on an immunotherapy will have over the course of the year is very significant. And what Labcorp offers is over 6,500 different tests so that the oncologists can use all the tests that they feel is appropriate for that patient from one place. So I think when you see the number of tests per accession increasing, you can start to see that, that can be driven by some of these patients. You also saw our neurology business, and that continues to have very strong double-digit growth there as well. We haven't disclosed the size of that business yet, but it is certainly becoming a significant portion of our specialty business within Diagnostics. So those areas are important in themselves. It's important scientifically that we'd be seen as good as we are scientifically, but it's also important for us to offer to the physician all the needs that a patient may require. Operator: And our next question comes from David Westenberg of Piper Sandler. David Westenberg: So I want to go on some of the self-collection and kind of how that might change the future of lab medicine. So just a couple of different concepts I was hoping you can touch on. First, I wanted to know if there is a number of patients out there that might not be accessing health care due to maybe transportation problems or fear of needles. And then over the longer term, I wanted to get your kind of thoughts on self-collection and cost of goods sold and margin. I would assume there's going to be some changes over time in kind of costs, but I also would think about maybe some of the overhead savings or anything like that. So I do think this is a concept that's going to change the industry, maybe not next year, but maybe over the next 5 years. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that. Adam Schechter: Yes. Thank you for the question, David. And we actually invest in companies that are working on various self-collection capabilities. And there will be certain times that self-collection will make sense. So even today, there are certain tests that people can do at home with a drop of blood that they can send into a Central Laboratory, one of our laboratories, and we can run a test for them. I do think over time, you'll be able to get blood through capillaries and so forth. But when you think about like an oncology patient or a neurology patient and you think about the amount of blood and the number of tools or the number of tubes that you have to take, it's hard to see a way that home collection can get to that level. And the question is going to be for what level of patients will they want to do home collection versus if they have to take significant blood, having to go to a phlebotomist at any rate. And we continue to watch that closely. We want to make sure we have both offerings for patients depending on what their needs are and then make it a patient decision. And for the reasons you said, there's pros and cons from an economic profile to both ways, either phlebotomy or at-home collection. But I don't think it's going to be one or the other. I think you're going to need a combination of both. And I think for a relatively healthy patient looking for a limited number of tests, you could probably do at-home collection years from now. But if it's a chronically ill patient that needs significant amount of tests, it's hard to see a path forward at this moment, but we'll continue to monitor that over time. Operator: And our next question comes from Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank. Pito Chickering: A follow-up on Elizabeth's questions on BLS. Just can you talk about specifically for earlier-stage development, how the market looks, how the new deals look, like, how is your win ratio? And how is pricing and how these strategic actions can impact margins in the back half of the year? Adam Schechter: Yes. So let me start and then Julia can talk a bit about margins. So first of all, I'd say the BLS business in general had a very strong quarter, and it was driven by strength in our Central Laboratory, which is 70% of that total business. If you look at Early Development, we made some strategic decisions. We've announced all of the ones that we are going to put in place, and we've begun and we've mostly completed implementing those announcements. So we've really told everybody what we were going to do, and we went out there and we did it, and we're implementing it very well. And you see that in some of the margin expansion, obviously, for BLS. You also can see that in the growth that we're seeing in Early Development now. I think the strategic decisions we made were really smart and good decisions. If you look at RFPs, they remain strong. I wouldn't say that they've increased significantly, but they have been strong. Our win rate is very consistent. Win rate to me is kind of a sense of market share, and our market share has remained consistent for quite some time. But we are seeing study starts to be a bit more on time where historically, we're seeing the study starts delayed a bit. And I think that's helping us as we go through the first half of this year and gives us confidence as we go into the second half of the year. And if you look at the book-to-bill, for Early Development, there's always a certain amount that you count on getting the trials within the year to start. And we see those in our pipeline. We see those in our book-to-bill, and we feel good about that. And that's why we're able to raise the revenue guidance for Early Development. Julia Wang: Yes. In terms of the margin, while we do not break out the 2 business units within the BLS segment, but what I can share is the following. As you can see in the first quarter, we improved the BLS segment margin by 60 basis points versus prior year. And in the second quarter, we expanded 130 basis points of margin. When you think about the drivers, they are really primarily 2 sources. First of all, is the continued strength in the top line growth in Central Labs. And the second area of margin driver is really the strategic action that we have taken in ED, and that started contributing in a relatively meaningful way in the second quarter. Now as you move through to the third and the fourth quarter, a couple of dynamics to be mindful of. First of all, we've always said that from a seasonality and the cadence perspective, the operating margin for the BLS segment generally strengthens throughout the year. Second of all, we've also shared that the strategic actions for ED have already all been announced and largely complete. Therefore, in the second half of the year, you can expect both the strong top line growth in Central Labs and the strategic actions taken in ED to help us drive further margin expansion. Lastly, I would say, we also reiterated our expectation that for full year 2026, the margin expansion for BLS as a segment is expected to outpace that for Diagnostics. And when you combine the margin expansion expectations for both operating segments, that gives us confidence to really guide for a full year EPS growth at the midpoint of over 11% for 2026. Operator: And our next question comes from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley. Erin Wilson Wright: You launched a new consumer offering marker. Can you just detail a little bit on your overall consumer strategy at this point around DTC testing? And do you expect this to move the needle for you? How do you think about the opportunities to partner across the consumer-driven health care ecosystem versus your own organic initiatives? And it sounds like you're mindful of the profitability and durability of some of these either partnerships or offerings on the DTC front. So how do you kind of balance that? Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you for the question, Erin. So our Labcorp OnDemand business continues to perform well, and it's delivering strong double-digit growth versus last year. We've been strategically investing in our consumer space through our innovative testing solutions, and we're making sure that the customer experience is actually meeting the patients where they are, and we're giving a very good patient experience. If you look at our OnDemand now, Erin, we have about 200 biomarkers. It's actually just over 200 biomarkers, which gives them the ability to take a more proactive approach to their health care wherever they would like to take that in areas like cancer screening, men and women's health. We have things for allergies and wellness. You mentioned that we also expanded our OnDemand, where in August, we're going to launch a genetics offering called Marker by Labcorp. And that's going to give them a single destination for consumers that want both biomarker and genetic testing through Labcorp, which is a trusted brand for them. So we are really focused on bringing to market through Labcorp OnDemand. We do look at all of the other alternatives in the marketplace. I can tell you most of those companies would love to work with us, but we want to make sure that we have a good margin profile that we understand the floor of where the price can go because a lot of those consumer markets, the price continues to decline over time. And we just feel like we have so many other growth opportunities in higher margin, higher quality revenue that we're going to focus on our Central Laboratory business, our health system business, our specialty testing business, and then our Labcorp OnDemand business, which also has a relatively good margin similar to our other businesses. Operator: And our next question comes from Ann Hynes of Mizuho. Ann Hynes: I just want to focus on the ACA and also bad debt where the hospital peers have noted a deterioration in collectibility of even the insured population. And I know that you don't have much bad debt related to your hospital partnerships. But just from the physician and your service centers, can you remind us what your ACA guidance assumes for bad debt and maybe what your Labcorp policy is and if you're seeing any signs in kind of this deterioration of co-pays, that would be great. Adam Schechter: So let me start. First of all, if you look overall at our bad debt, we have not seen a significant increase in our bad debt. If you look at the ACA, we built in 30 basis point impact. The ACA total amount of our business is less than 5%. So it's very small. And we think for the full year, it's about a 30 basis point impact. If you look at our hospital business, which is kind of a surrogate to part of what you're asking, we continue to see growth in the hospital laboratory businesses to where we would expect that growth to be. And we've actually seen a bit of accelerated growth in the hospital reference business, which is a good place to be. So overall, we're not seeing the impact of some of our other customers may be seeing, and it could be the mix of patients, whether they're relatively healthy versus chronic disease and so forth. But as we look at our business, we feel confident in the guidance that we increased and provided today. We feel confident in our diagnostic business and what we provided today as well. Julia Wang: Yes. And just for perspective, right, if you look at our payer mix for the last few years, it has really stayed relatively consistent and also, as we shared earlier on the call, our bad debt as a percentage of revenue for Diagnostics really continues to be in line with our prior experiences and -- which is typically just less than around like 5% of our revenue. So as you can expect, this is an area of heightened organizational focus for us, and we continue to work extremely diligently to ensure that we manage it appropriately and effectively. Operator: And our next question comes from Tycho Peterson of Jefferies. Tycho Peterson: Maybe 2 quick ones. First, on capital allocation, just thinking about the M&A funnel. Is there a stronger appetite to look at some of the hospital labs amid some of the ACA noise that is out there? Does that change your kind of lens on M&A? And then second unrelated one, just on PAMA, any visibility into the ongoing data submissions from the independent labs? And I think there was another crush request for information as well. Just maybe touch on that as well. Adam Schechter: Yes, Tycho. So first of all, our pipeline for deals is very strong, and it continues to be very strong. And I do think that hospitals are feeling additional pressure, not just from ACA, but as they think about it, PAMA is going to occur next year that feel even some additional pressure potentially. So I would say that we have a very high bar. It has to be accretive in the first year, return its cost of capital in 2 to 3 years and be a partner that we can work very well with to help with the integration. If it meets that financial criteria, we are open to it, and that pipeline remains strong, and I'm excited about the things in our pipeline. So stay tuned. Separate and distinct from that, you mentioned PAMA. The submission date is tomorrow, the 31st. We've obviously submitted our data. We probably won't have significant insight into how many other laboratories submitted their data until October time frame. So stay tuned for that. What I can say is, the RESULTS Act continues to be focused on by our trade group as well as us. I think we're making real progress. We have real bipartisan support, both in the Senate and Congress and even the physicians in Congress have cited that they believe the RESULTS Act is a good legislative package to approve. So we're going to continue to march forward with that. It's hard to predict what happens with legislation, particularly in November with elections and so forth. Our backup will be to see if there's a way to have another delay of PAMA. And then we're always going to plan that if it occurs, we'll have a really strong plan next year. And if it doesn't occur, the plan will be even stronger. And we look forward to discussing that in more detail in September at our Analyst Day. Operator: And our next question comes from Luke Sergott of Barclays. Anna Kruszenski: This is Anna Kruszenski on for Luke. I appreciate you guys squeezing us in here. Wanted to ask about how early adoption is going for the ColoSense test that you launched in June. And if you could talk about reimbursement dynamics and just overall, how that's been going so far. Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you for the question. So first of all, we're excited to bring another option to market for noninvasive colorectal screening. So ColoSense is FDA approved. It's at-home collection tool-based and it's for average-risk adults above the age of 45. We think it's an opportunity to expand screening options that are out there. There's still a lot of people that should be screened that are not screened. And I look at it as another important alternative to be considered for patients. The early signals, I would say, are encouraging. We launched it nationally in June, positive market reception by the American Cancer Society. It was included in their guidelines. We have CMS coverage. Early signals are encouraging, but it's still very early. And we have to really focus on getting broad payer access, and that just takes time. So stay tuned, and we're going to continue to work on access. Operator: And our next question comes from Yujin Park of Baird. Yujin Park: I just wanted to follow up on Early Development margin. So outside of the strategic actions benefiting margin, can you talk more about the underlying margin improvement? And where do you see opportunities? And if there were any changes you see on the pricing side? Julia Wang: Yes. So let me start and Adam, please chime in. I would say a couple of things to consider, right? So when you think about margin, first and foremost, start with the top line growth. And in terms of the pricing for ED, it has been relatively flat. Therefore, to the extent that we could get into a trajectory of generating organic constant currency top line growth, that is going to be a key source of our margin expansion in addition to the strategic actions that we have taken. Now given that at this point in time, we have announced all the actions and they are largely complete. As I look out for the second half of this year, I believe we are very well positioned in continuing to expand the margin for the BLS segment, inclusive of ED to be able to contribute to our overall enterprise adjusted EPS expectation of over 11% of the midpoint of our guidance. Adam Schechter: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you all soon. Have a great day. Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. 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This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Labcorp (LH) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Henry Schein, Inc. HSIC reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $1.27 per share, up 15.5% year over year. The bottom line surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.1%. Net sales rose 6.7% to $3.46 billion and beat the consensus estimate by 2.8%. Results benefited from 4.6% internal sales growth, with gains across distribution, specialty products and technology. Acquisitions contributed 0.7% to growth, while foreign currency movements added 1.4%. Following the announcement, HSIC’s shares edged up 0.1% in the pre-market session today. Global Distribution and Value-Added Services sales increased 6.6% to $2.91 billion. The segment generated 4.5% internal growth, a 0.6% contribution from acquisitions and a 1.5% foreign exchange benefit. Global Medical Distribution sales advanced 4% to $1.06 billion, supported by 3.9% internal growth. Global Value-Added Services sales increased 5.1% to $61 million, reflecting 3.7% internal growth. Henry Schein, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Henry Schein, Inc. Quote U.S. Distribution and Value-Added Services sales rose 4.6% to $1.95 billion. International sales in the segment climbed 10.7% to $965 million, aided by 5.5% internal growth and a 4.5% currency benefit. Global Specialty Products sales increased 8.7% to $419 million. Internal growth was 3.2%, acquisitions contributed 3.4% and foreign currency exchange added 2.1%. Global Technology sales advanced 8.2% to $181 million. Internal sales grew 9.1%, partly offset by a 1.3% reduction related to a business disposal. Foreign exchange contributed 0.4%. Technology delivered the company’s highest internal growth rate among its major reporting categories. The performance complemented steady gains in dental merchandise, medical distribution and specialty products. In the reported quarter, gross profit totaled $1.10 billion, representing an 8.4% increase year over year. The gross margin expanded 48 basis points (bps) to 31.8% despite a 6% rise in the cost of sales. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased 6.8% to $831 million. Operating income rose 13.2% to $171 million, while the operating margin expanded 28 bps year over year to 4.9%. Henry Schein exited the second quarter of 2026 with cash and cash equivalents of $157 million compared with $138 million at March-end. Cumulative net cash provided by operating activities at the end of the reported quarter was $145 million compared with $157 million a year ago. Management raised its 2026 adjusted earnings guidance to $5.29-$5.39 per share, from the earlier $5.23-$5.37 range. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings currently stands at $5.32 per share. The company also lifted its total sales growth forecast to 4.5%-5.5% from 3%-5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for sales is currently pegged at $13.72 billion, indicating 4.1% year-over-year growth. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to grow at a mid- to high-single-digit rate, compared with the prior expectation of mid-single-digit growth. Management cited sustained business momentum, margin improvement and early benefits from its value creation initiatives. The updated outlook assumes foreign exchange rates remain generally consistent with current levels. It excludes future tariff refunds, remeasurement gains and several items that management does not consider representative of underlying performance. Henry Schein exited the second quarter with both earnings and revenue beating estimates. Performance was driven by sustained momentum across the company’s businesses and solid operational execution by the team. Henry Schein also benefited from the early impact of its value creation initiatives, which supported stronger adjusted bottom-line growth. The raised guidance for the year is also very promising. Henry Schein currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Labcorp Holdings LH, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Labcorp, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.99, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. Revenues of $3.73 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. LH has an earnings yield of 5.9% compared with the industry’s 4.1% yield. The company's earnings beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 3.09%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Henry Schein, Inc. (HSIC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). 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Interested in Labcorp Holdings Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Labcorp delivered strong Q2 results: Revenue increased 5.8% to $3.7 billion, adjusted EPS rose 14.9% to $4.99, and adjusted operating margin expanded to 15.8%. Both major segments gained momentum. Diagnostics revenue grew 5.5%, supported by specialty testing and new offerings such as ColoSense, while Biopharma Laboratory Services revenue rose 6.5% and ended the quarter with an $8.7 billion backlog. Labcorp raised its 2026 outlook: The company increased its revenue-growth midpoint and narrowed adjusted EPS guidance to $18.10–$18.55, while maintaining free-cash-flow guidance of $1.24–$1.36 billion and expanding its share-repurchase authorization to $1.4 billion. L3Harris’ Record Backlog Makes Its Stock Sell-Off Look Overdone Labcorp (NYSE:LH) reported second-quarter 2026 revenue growth, margin expansion and higher adjusted earnings, prompting the laboratory services company to raise the midpoint of its full-year revenue and adjusted EPS guidance. Revenue rose 5.8% year over year to $3.7 billion, while adjusted operating margin expanded 70 basis points to 15.8%, according to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Adam Schechter. Adjusted earnings per share increased 14.9% to $4.99, and free cash flow was $314 million. → Why SK hynix Could Be the Best AI Chip Stock to Buy Now After 15% L3Harris Price Drop, Is It Time to Buy or Time to Fly? “Labcorp delivered another very strong quarter, driven by solid revenue growth, margin expansion, and progress across our strategic priorities,” Schechter said on the company’s earnings call. The Diagnostics segment generated $2.9 billion in revenue, up 5.5% from a year earlier. Organic revenue grew 3.6%, including 1.8% accession volume growth and 1.8% favorable price mix, while acquisitions contributed 1.9% growth. Segment adjusted operating income rose to $523 million, and adjusted operating margin increased 50 basis points to 18%. → Microsoft Just Flipped the AI Spending Narrative Overnight Why This Defense ETF Could Keep Rallying as the Iran Conflict Escalates Schechter said the company’s specialty testing areas—oncology, neurology, autoimmune disease and women’s health—collectively posted double-digit revenue growth in the first half. He said specialty testing also contributes to higher tests per accession, as patients with complex conditions such as cancer may require multiple types of laboratory testing over time. During the quarter, Labcorp launched ColoSense nationwide, an FDA-approved RNA-based colorectal cancer screening test with at-home collection. Schechter said the test has Medicare coverage and expanding commercial payer access. The company also expanded its cancer-testing offerings with a clinical trial collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center involving its PlasmaDetect genome MRD test for non-small cell lung cancer recurrence, as well as broader access to a Roche companion diagnostic for prostate cancer. → Carrier Earnings Could Send the Stock to a New All-Time High Labcorp also cited expanded access to its myOLARIS-KTdx kidney-transplant surveillance test and said its NASHnext blood-based liver-disease test is scheduled to receive Medicare coverage beginning in mid-August. On reimbursement and collection trends, Chief Financial Officer Julia Wang said Labcorp continues to assume a 30-basis-point full-year impact to Diagnostics volume from Affordable Care Act-related changes. The affected payer cohort represents less than 4% to 5% of total Diagnostics volume, she said. The second quarter saw a 20- to 30-basis-point headwind to Diagnostics volume from this source. Wang also said Diagnostics bad debt remained in line with prior-year and historical levels, at less than or around 5% of revenue. Schechter noted that growth in Labcorp OnDemand, where consumers pay upfront for testing, is included in patient-pay revenue and does not increase bad debt. Biopharma Laboratory Services, or BLS, revenue rose 6.5% to $836 million. On an organic constant-currency basis, Central Laboratory Services revenue grew 7.6%, while Early Development revenue increased 2.7%. BLS adjusted operating income increased to $142 million, or 17% of segment revenue, from $123 million, or 15.7%, a year earlier. Wang attributed the 130-basis-point margin improvement to organic growth and operating efficiencies from strategic actions in the Early Development business. She said those actions have all been announced and are largely complete. Schechter said Central Laboratory Services represents about 70% of the BLS segment and remains the primary driver of segment growth. He added that Early Development has seen strong request-for-proposal activity, consistent win rates and study starts occurring more on time than in prior periods. The BLS segment ended the quarter with an $8.7 billion backlog, with approximately $2.7 billion expected to convert into revenue over the next 12 months. Quarterly book-to-bill was 1.14, bringing the trailing 12-month figure to 1.03. Labcorp deployed capital through acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends during the quarter. The company invested $226 million in acquisitions, repurchased $354 million of shares and paid $59 million in dividends. After retiring $500 million in senior notes, it ended the quarter with $142 million in cash and $5.9 billion in total debt. In July, the board increased the company’s share-repurchase authorization by $1 billion, bringing the remaining authorization to $1.4 billion. For 2026, Labcorp now expects enterprise revenue growth of 5.4% to 6.3%, raising the midpoint by 30 basis points. Diagnostics revenue is projected to grow 5.3% to 6%, a 20-basis-point midpoint increase, while BLS revenue is expected to rise 5.5% to 6.5%, with the midpoint raised by 140 basis points. Adjusted EPS guidance was raised and narrowed to $18.10 to $18.55, implying growth of more than 11% at the midpoint. Full-year free-cash-flow guidance was maintained at $1.24 billion to $1.36 billion. The company continues to expect capital expenditures of about 4% of revenue. Labcorp expects both Diagnostics and BLS margins to improve in 2026, with BLS margin expansion exceeding that of Diagnostics. The company said its consumer business continued to grow at a double-digit rate, supported by demand for consumer-initiated testing and digital tools. Labcorp plans to launch its Marker by Labcorp genetic health offering through Labcorp OnDemand in August, combining biomarker and genetic testing options for consumers. Schechter said the company is focused on its own consumer-testing platform while remaining selective about partnerships, citing the importance of maintaining a favorable margin profile. Labcorp OnDemand includes more than 200 biomarkers, he said, with offerings across cancer screening, men’s and women’s health, allergies and wellness. Labcorp also expanded its collaboration with Epic, making more than 6,500 Labcorp diagnostic tests available through Epic’s Aura platform. The company completed acquisitions of select outreach laboratory services from Parkview Health in Indiana and Ohio, as well as Tribal Diagnostics, which serves communities in Oklahoma and Texas. Looking ahead, Schechter said Labcorp’s pipeline for hospital and laboratory partnership transactions remains strong. He said the company requires acquisitions to be accretive in the first year and to return their cost of capital within two to three years. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, commonly known as Labcorp (NYSE: LH), is a global life sciences company that provides comprehensive clinical laboratory and drug development services. The company operates a broad network of laboratories, patient service centers and specialty testing sites to deliver diagnostic information and testing solutions that support patient care, clinical decision-making and population health initiatives. Labcorp's core businesses encompass clinical laboratory testing and pharmaceutical development services. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Labcorp Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for July 2026.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET Senior Vice President, Investor Relations - Dewey Steadman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Adam Schechter Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - Julia Wang Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2026 Labcorp Holdings Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Dewey Steadman, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Dewey Steadman: Good morning, and welcome to Labcorp's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Webcast. With me today are Adam Schechter, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Julia Wang, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, in the Events section of the Labcorp Investor Relations website at ir.labcorp.com, we posted both our press release and a supplemental financial presentation with additional information on our business and operations. We will also post a replay of this webcast on the IR website for 1 year. On today's webcast, we will focus on our adjusted or non-GAAP results for the second quarter of 2026, our capital allocation strategy and our updated financial guidance for the full year 2026. Our GAAP results and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are available in today's earnings release and the supplemental financial presentation. Please see the Use of Adjusted Measures section in the supplemental presentation for more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures. In today's remarks, the term organic growth excludes the impact from acquisitions, divestitures, and currency, as well as other strategic actions taken in the Early Development business. Our remarks will also include forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements about our updated 2026 financial guidance and the assumptions underlying that guidance; the expected impact of various factors on our business, operating and financial results, cash flows and financial condition; global economic and market conditions; our future business strategies; the expected savings, benefits, and synergies from acquisitions, strategic actions, and partnerships; and our potential opportunities for future growth. Each of these forward-looking statements is subject to change based upon various factors, many of which are beyond our control. More information is included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q and in the company's other filings with the SEC. We have no obligation to provide any updates to these forward-looking statements, even if our expectations change. Now, I'll turn the call over to Labcorp's Chairman and CEO, Adam Schechter. Adam? Adam Schechter: Thank you, Dewey, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today to review our second quarter 2026 results. Labcorp delivered another very strong quarter driven by solid revenue growth, margin expansion, and progress across our strategic priorities. Our Diagnostics and Biopharma Laboratory Services businesses both performed well, advancing strategic initiatives and expanding technological capabilities that continue to drive growth. Key accomplishments include broadening our specialty test portfolio; expanding partnerships with leading health systems, biopharmaceutical clients, and regional and local laboratories; continuing to grow our consumer business; and increasing the use of advanced technologies across the company. Turning to our enterprise financials for the second quarter. Revenue grew 6% to $3.7 billion. Margins improved 70 basis points to 15.8%. Adjusted earnings per share grew 15% to $4.99, and free cash flow was $314 million. Moving to our segments. Diagnostics revenue increased 5.5% to $2.9 billion. Biopharma Laboratory Services revenue increased 6.5% to $836 million driven by strength in Central Laboratories, and our BLS book-to-bill was 1.14 in the quarter and 1.03 in the trailing 12 months. Julia will review our updated increased guidance in just a moment. Our results reflect the progress we've made across each of our strategic priorities, beginning with strengthening our leadership in specialty testing across oncology, neurology, autoimmune disease, and women's health. Collectively, in the first half of the year, these specialty areas delivered double-digit revenue growth and helped us to win new health system and provider customers. Laboratory testing plays a critical role in both drug development and in patient care, supporting earlier detection, diagnosis, therapy selection and ongoing disease monitoring, all of which support better health outcomes while enabling more informed clinical decision-making. In our Labcorp Oncology business, we expanded our portfolio across lung, colorectal, and prostate cancer, adding innovative screening, diagnostic and companion diagnostic testing solutions. We launched ColoSense nationwide, the first FDA-approved, RNA-based colorectal cancer screening test with an at-home collection. With Medicare and expanding commercial payer coverage, this test increases patient access to screening and enables earlier detection. And we entered into a clinical trial collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center to evaluate Labcorp's Plasma Detect Genome MRD in patients at risk of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer recurrence. We expanded nationwide access to Roche's FDA-approved companion diagnostic for people living with prostate cancer who will now be eligible for combination treatment with AstraZeneca's targeted therapy. And we added an advanced DPYD genotyping test to our portfolio that helps identify patients at risk for severe treatment-related toxicity from certain chemotherapies. Beyond our priority specialty areas, we continue to advance testing solutions across a broad range of important health conditions. We signed an agreement to broaden nationwide access to myOLARIS-KTdx, a first-of-its-kind noninvasive test that supports surveillance of graft injury, including rejection following a kidney transplant. For patients at risk of liver disease, Labcorp's blood-based test, NASHnext, secured Medicare coverage beginning in mid-August, expanding access for more patients and enabling earlier detection of MASH. Additionally, new peer-reviewed research demonstrated the potential of Labcorp's advanced noninvasive blood-based diagnostic tools, including MVX and NIS2+ to improve risk assessment and to provide early identification of patients at risk for liver disease progression. Moving now to the strategic priority of being a partner of choice for health systems and regional and local laboratories. These partnerships play an important role in providing health systems and providers greater access to our high-quality, cost-effective laboratory services, to our scientific expertise and to our broad testing portfolio, including specialty diagnostics. In the quarter, we completed the acquisition of select outreach laboratory services from Parkview Health in Indiana and Ohio and the acquisition of Tribal Diagnostics, a clinical laboratory serving communities in Oklahoma and Texas. And once again, we were recently awarded a Department of Defense contract to provide laboratory testing for service members and their families across military hospitals worldwide. We continue to have a very robust pipeline of deals and to support our long-term growth strategy, and we look forward to sharing more of those moving forward. Turning to the consumer health space. Our consumer business continued to deliver strong double-digit growth, driven by increasing demand for consumer-initiated testing, innovative offerings and compelling digital experiences. And with the recent announcement of our Marker by Labcorp Genetic Health Panel through Labcorp OnDemand, consumers will be able to get biomarker and genetic testing and insights from a single trusted source. We also launched Canada's first at-home self-collection test to measure women's fertility-related hormones and men's testosterone levels. Additionally, our recently launched AI-powered app, MyLabcorp, has already begun to be downloaded by millions of consumers. The app allows patients to schedule appointments to view their test results and to gain deeper insights into their health using AI. These differentiated innovations, combined with our leading science, are creating personalized experiences that consumers can trust. We continue to make strong progress on the strategic priority of shaping our future through technology and innovation to improve the customer experience, to enhance productivity and to transform our business. In the quarter, we broadened our collaboration with Epic, which will make Labcorp's 6,500-plus diagnostic tests available on Epic's Aura platform. This collaboration will make it easier for health care providers using Epic Aura to access Labcorp's test, including genetics, oncology and other advanced diagnostics. We also enhanced the experience at Labcorp's patient service centers through expanded appointment availability, streamlined scheduling and proactive rescheduling reminders and assistance. These are just a few examples of how we're advancing our strategic priorities and serving our customers. Our results this quarter and our progress against our strategy were made possible by our teams who carry out our mission each and every day. Their impact was recognized by Time, where we were honored to be named again as one of the world's most impactful companies. We were also included on the Wall Street Journal's Best Companies for the Future list, recognizing our commitment to innovation with long-term value creation and positive impact. With that, I'll turn the call over to Julia to discuss our financial results in more detail. Julia Wang: Thank you, Adam. Our second quarter results reflect strong momentum and continued execution of our strategy. Enterprise revenue grew 5.8% versus the prior year. Enterprise adjusted operating margin expanded 70 basis points to 15.8%, primarily driven by organic revenue growth. Adjusted earnings per share grew 14.9%, and we generated $314 million in free cash flow. We also remain active on capital deployment. We invested $226 million in acquisitions, repurchased $354 million of shares and paid $59 million in dividends. Following the retirement of $500 million in senior notes in the second quarter, we had $142 million in cash and $5.9 billion in total debt at the end of the quarter. In July, our Board of Directors approved an increase of $1 billion in the company's share repurchase authorization, bringing the total authorization outstanding to $1.4 billion. Moving to more details on the quarter. Enterprise revenue was $3.7 billion, up 5.8% from the second quarter of 2025. Organic revenue growth was 4.2%. Net acquisitions contributed 1.2% growth. Foreign currency translation contributed 0.4%. Adjusted operating income was $589 million or 15.8% of revenue compared to $532 million or 15.1% of revenue last year. The adjusted tax rate was 23%, in line with last year. We continue to expect our full year adjusted tax rate to be approximately 23%. Adjusted EPS was $4.99, up 14.9% from last year. Free cash flow was $314 million, compared to $543 million last year. The difference was primarily due to working capital timing and planned increases in capital expenditures. We continue to expect free cash flow in the range of $1.24 billion to $1.36 billion for full year 2026. Turning to our segments. Diagnostics segment delivered another strong quarter. Revenue was $2.9 billion, up 5.5% compared to the prior year. Volume growth contributed 3% and price mix contributed 2.5%. We delivered organic revenue growth of 3.6%, consisting of 1.8% volume growth and 1.8% favorable price mix, which was largely driven by higher tests per accession. Revenue from acquisitions contributed 1.9%, consisting of 1.3% volume growth and 0.6% favorable price mix. Diagnostics segment adjusted operating income was $523 million or 18% of segment revenue compared to $483 million or 17.6% of revenue last year. Adjusted operating margin expanded 50 basis points due to organic growth and operating efficiencies. BLS segment revenue was $836 million, up 6.5% compared to last year. Organic constant currency revenue growth was 6.2%, as a 1.8% benefit from foreign currency translation was partially offset by a 1.4% impact from our Early Development strategic actions. Within the BLS segment, on an organic constant currency basis, Central Lab Services delivered strong revenue growth of 7.6% and Early Development grew 2.7%. BLS segment adjusted operating income was $142 million or 17% of revenue, compared to $123 million or 15.7% of revenue last year. Adjusted operating margin expanded 130 basis points, driven by organic growth and operating efficiencies from the strategic actions we have taken in Early Development. All strategic actions have been announced and are largely complete. Our BLS segment ended the quarter with a backlog of $8.7 billion. We expect approximately $2.7 billion to convert into revenue over the next 12 months. Quarterly book-to-bill was strong at 1.14, bringing trailing 12-month book-to-bill to 1.03. Turning to our full year 2026 guidance. We are raising the midpoint of our enterprise revenue range and our adjusted EPS range by $42 million and $0.30, respectively. Enterprise revenue is expected to grow 5.4% to 6.3%, which represents a 30 basis point increase at the midpoint. The guidance continues to include a 40 basis point benefit from foreign currency translation. Diagnostics segment revenue is expected to grow 5.3% to 6%. This is a 20 basis point increase at the midpoint. We continue to expect the majority of growth to be driven by organic performance. BLS segment revenue is expected to grow 5.5% to 6.5%. We have raised the midpoint of our BLS revenue guidance by 140 basis points, driven by continued strength in Central Labs and a more favorable outlook for Early Development. The guidance continues to include a 150 basis point tailwind from foreign currency translation. For the full year, on an organic constant currency basis, we continue to expect Central Labs revenue to grow in the mid-single digits. We now expect Early Development revenue to grow in the low single digits. We continue to expect enterprise margin expansion with margins improving in both Diagnostics and BLS in 2026 versus 2025. Consistent with our prior expectations, BLS margin is expected to expand more than Diagnostics. This reflects continued strong top line growth in Central Labs and the benefits from the strategic actions in Early Development. At the enterprise level, we continue to benefit from our Launchpad initiative, which remains on track. Our adjusted EPS guidance range is $18.10 to $18.55 with an implied growth rate at the midpoint of more than 11%. Compared to prior guidance, we have narrowed the range and raised the midpoint by $0.30. Our free cash flow guidance range remains $1.24 billion to $1.36 billion. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately 4% of revenue. Our full year guidance assumes foreign exchange rates as of June 30, 2026. The guidance also reflects our current capital allocation assumptions, including the use of free cash flow for acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends. We remain focused on delivering profitable growth and strong free cash flow to generate long-term shareholder value. Now, I will turn the call back to Adam for closing remarks. Adam Schechter: Thank you, Julia. Let me close with a few takeaways. First, we delivered another strong quarter of financial performance, including solid revenue growth, significant margin expansion and double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Second, we strengthened our leadership in specialty testing and announced several important partnerships with health systems. And third, we are leveraging technology and AI to create differentiated customer experiences to enhance productivity and to transform our business. All of this has led to us increasing our full year revenue and EPS guidance. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our long-term growth trajectory. We are executing with discipline, investing in areas of significant opportunity and remain well positioned to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value to both customers and shareholders. Operator, we'll now take questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Lisa Gill of JPMorgan. Lisa Gill: Adam, I just really wanted to understand a couple of things when we look at the strong organic growth. You talked about specialty testing being double-digit growth. You talked about advancing strategic partnerships in the marketplace. Can you just talk about underlying what you're seeing from a utilization perspective, one? And then just on the back of that, I think previously, you had talked about a potential impact from changes of -- around ACA and Medicaid. Do you still have something in your guidance or anticipation that we could see some type of headwind because of changes to the exchanges in Medicaid? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thanks for the question, Lisa. I'll take the first part. I'll ask Julia to comment on ACA and what's built into the guidance. So Diagnostics had a very strong quarter. That's for sure. We had $2.9 billion in revenue, which increased 5.5% versus last year. And as you mentioned, it was strong organic growth. The organic growth was 3.6% and then just under 2% was due to acquisitions. If you take a further look, the volume growth was also good at 3% with the majority of that volume growth coming from organic growth. We're certainly seeing our specialty business grow faster than the routine business, and we expect to continue to see that. Importantly, when we have the specialty business and you look at an area like oncology, it's not just the oncology test, but it's the oncology patient. And if you look at an oncology patient, they tend to get many, many, many more tests than a typical patient over time. So that's why we also believe we're seeing tests per accession continue to increase as well. Julia Wang: Lisa, in terms of the ACA impact, previously, we provided an estimate of 30 basis points to the Diagnostics segment volume for full year 2026. At this point in time, we continue to believe that this assumption is appropriate, and we have incorporated it into the updated guidance that we just provided this morning. As you might recall, we shared on our last earnings call that the impact from ACA during Q1 was immaterial. Subsequently, in the second quarter, it was a slight headwind of about 20 to 30 basis points of the diagnostic volume. Now it is important to note that this particular payer cohort accounts for a very small percentage of our total diagnostic volume, which is less than 4% to 5%. Therefore, our expectation for the full year impact remains unchanged. But of course, we will continue to monitor closely and manage appropriately. Operator: And our next question comes from Kevin Caliendo of UBS. Kevin Caliendo: I want to dive a little bit into the organic volumes number and how to think about that relative to the markets? How are you faring in the retail segment? How are you faring hospital versus doc offices? And sort of what's embedded in that in terms of how you calculate volumes versus number of tests that you're doing? Is it sort of an apples-to-apples because we're hearing that there are more tests per accession. And I'm just trying to understand how to think about this organic -- your positioning in organic volumes versus the market versus your peers and how it's reported? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thanks, Kevin. So let me start, and I'll ask Julia to provide additional context. So first of all, the volume growth was 3%. So it remains strong. And the majority of that 1.8% was organic volume growth. That does not include the test per accession increases. So if you would increase that, you would actually see tests actually going up even more. We're doing very well. The market typically grows at 1% to 2%. So we're growing substantially more than the overall market. And I think a big part of that is some of the hospital deals that we're doing, the local and regional laboratory deals that we're doing that continue over time to give us additional growth opportunities. If I look in the overall market, we're doing very well in primary care. We're doing well in the hospital segment. And if you look at hospital reference testing, for example, we're actually even growing faster there than the overall segment. So I think we have some real strength if you look at reference testing as well. So overall, I'd say that it's a good organic growth, and that's why we were comfortable to raise the midpoint of the diagnostic revenue guidance by about 20 basis points, and we remain excited about the rest of the year. Julia Wang: Yes. Kevin, in terms of your question about the way that we account for volume for Diagnostics, it is beneficial to bring some clarity to that. As you know, we typically report that out in the measurement of accession. And then we would account for the number of tests, including the accession in the price mix calculation. However, if you step back and think about volume in the unit of test, you could potentially argue that the combination of the volume growth in accession combined with volume growth in number of tests is a more intrinsic representation of the volume growth. So with that being said, maybe I can give you a little bit more color. For example, in the second quarter, we just shared that the price mix growth for the Diagnostic business was about 2.5%. And out of that, the organic aspect of our business contributed 1.8% once again in terms of accession. But if you think about the test per accession growth, it's also another kind of majority of the contributor to the price mix improvement. So all in all, I would say, if you take the accession growth of 1.8% and 1.8% price mix contribution is almost 3.6% in the terminology of number of test growth. Now immediately post-COVID, we have seen significant growth in test per accession versus prior to COVID. But over time, we continue to see consistent and slight growth in test per accession quarter in and quarter out. Now longer term, we continue to believe that the mix growth will be supported by structural factors as well as our own strategic focus, as you've heard from Adam earlier, which, of course, include the considerations around the aging population, the health and wellness trend, the advancement in Diagnostics testing as well as the breadth of our testing menu and our focus on specialty testing. Operator: And our next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore ISI. Elizabeth Anderson: Maybe one on BLS. Obviously, nice to see this morning. If we think about Early Development, can you talk about from maybe a revenue perspective, like how much of the revenue improvement was sort of the end of the restructuring versus the end market improving there? Central Labs, obviously, continues to be strong. And then can you help us sort of decompose the bookings, just looking for a little bit more color there. Adam Schechter: Sure. So if you look at BLS revenue, it increased 6.5% versus last year. So it was very strong. And it was driven by Central Lab that's really performing well, represents about 70% of the BLS segment. And the Central Labs grew 10% or on organic constant currency, it was about 8%. If you look at Early Development, it was down 1% reported, but it was up 3% on an organic constant currency basis. So we've certainly seen that business do a bit better than it has in the prior year or 2. If you look at ED, we continue to look at RFPs, which are strong. We look at our win rate, which remains consistent. We're also seeing study starts to be a bit more on time. So we were able to raise the guidance, frankly, to single-digit growth for that business for this year versus prior, it was relatively flat. And that's based upon a strong book-to-bill. For Early Development, you might recall that within a year, you can have a study start and finish. So you typically have a lower book-to-bill overall for Early Development, but those studies can start and end in the same point in the year. The strength in our book-to-bill was really driven by Central Laboratories. And if you look at the Central Laboratories, typically, the book-to-bill is for future years. So the strength in our book-to-bill for the quarter of 1.14 or 1.03 trailing 12 months bodes well for the Central Laboratory business as we look into the future. Operator: And our next question comes from Michael Cherny of Leerink Partners. Michael Cherny: Maybe just one quick clarification and then a build on that. Just on the guidance update for Diagnostics segment, is the 20 basis points of volume organic or inorganic in terms of what's changed? And then along those lines, looking at the trend file you sent out, there was a shift higher in patient responsibility as a percent of total revenue versus clients and third-party. Anything specific to call out there in terms of what you're seeing? Adam Schechter: Yes. I would say -- I'll answer the second question first. If you look at some of the patient pay, typically, the second quarter has been a bit higher than other quarters. And patient pay includes a lot of things, co-pays, deductibles as well as patients buying direct. We have seen double-digit growth in our Labcorp OnDemand test, which will be included in patient self-pay. And the good news about that is patients pay upfront, so it doesn't increase bad debt. If you look at our bad debt, it remains consistent, and we haven't seen any significant increases there even with that patient pay. So the more growth we get from Labcorp OnDemand, you will see that fall into the patient pay. Julia Wang: Yes. And the only thing I would add on that patient responsibility and bad debt topic is that if you look at our bad debt as a percentage of revenue for the diagnostic business, it continues to be in line with prior year as well as historical benchmarks. So from that standpoint, we continue to work very hard on the collection efforts to ensure that we manage it very effectively. I think, Michael, the other question you have is as it relates to the midpoint of the revenue guide raise for Diagnostics. Now, as you might be familiar with our practice, at the beginning of the year, we generally would be planning for certain in-year revenue for deals that we might not necessarily have already inked, so to speak, but have line of sight. But once we got to a point where we feel much more confident about the ability to close and generate revenue in the year, we will move that to the respective segment. And in this particular case, we are moving that revenue expectation from corporate into the Diagnostics segment because at this moment, we feel more confident about our ability to deliver against that expectation. Operator: And our next question comes from Jack Meehan of Operon Research. Jack Meehan: I wanted to push a little bit more on the diagnostic lab organic growth. The 3.6%, that's nothing to scoff at here, but it comes after a notably stronger print from your closest peer. So I was just curious, like, as you kind of look at the landscape, how much of this delta do you think is either competitive or market or just like a conscious decision not to chase certain hospital arrangements that are lower margin or just something else like help us interpret it. Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you, Jack, for the question. And if you look at the Diagnostics business, as you said, 3.6% organic growth is a good number. But importantly, if you look at our margin, our margin for the quarter improved 50 basis points. And that is already after we've lapped Invitae. So that's -- and historically, people have said, well, you're lapping Invitae, of course, your margins improved. This is after that. So what we're doing is we're focusing on high-growth areas like the specialty oncology, women's health, autoimmune disease, and neurology. We're focusing on higher margin segments. And in some of the lower-margin segments such as some of the partnerships in the consumer area, we've not focused because we have so many other growth opportunities, including our Central Laboratory business, including some of the other hospital deals that we feel very confident with the guidance that we've given that it's a very high-quality, strong set of guidance that's not only good top line growth, but also with margin expansion. Julia Wang: Jack, to build on what Adam just shared, I'd like to provide some additional color as it relates to our margin progression. I would start by saying that we continue to be very pleased with our operating margin expansion trajectory. For perspective, Q2 of this year represents the fifth consecutive quarter that we have been able to expand our operating margin for the enterprise as well as for both of our operating segments. As we just shared in the release this morning, in the second quarter, we delivered 70 basis points of enterprise margin expansion versus prior year. And as Adam also pointed out, if you look at the segment, we improved about 50 basis points in Diagnostics, and we expanded the BLS segment margin by 130 basis points versus prior year. Now as you look at the full year 2026, consistent with our communications, we continue to expect another year of meaningful margin improvement in both segments. And we also continue to expect even greater margin expansion year-over-year by the BLS segment than the Diagnostics segment. So overall, I would say that as an enterprise, we have been highly focused on driving durable top line growth that is profitable. And our relentless focus has clearly been reflected in our financials, including the operating margin trajectory. Operator: And our next question comes from Michael Ryskin of Bank of America. Michael Ryskin: Maybe let's shift to specialty testing and oncology specifically. You talked about, I think, double-digit growth in specialty in the first half. I don't know if that accelerated or not in the second quarter. I think you only gave a first half number. But would just love to hear more about how that's doing, also double digit is sort of a broad range. What I'm trying to get at is sort of how impactful is that to the 3.6% organic growth that you've been talking about in the Dx business? How much that's moving the needle, whether it is some of the newer updates and portfolio expansions that you've talked about, whether it's ColoSense or some of the organic investments? And just sort of how much upside do you think that could be providing to the second half and beyond? Adam Schechter: Yes. Thank you for the question, Michael. As I think about oncology, we've made significant progress in that area over the years, whether it be in solid tumor capabilities or it be in liquid capabilities, whether it be through partnerships like screening with ColoSense or it be an MRD, where we've launched products for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, we continue to make extraordinary progress in bringing new tests to market in that area. Now when you do 750 million tests per year, it takes a lot to move the needle. And when you look at that 3.6%, you think about the 3.6% of the base, it still takes a lot to move that needle. There's no doubt that the oncology market will continue to grow well. We expect it to continue to grow 2 to 3x faster than the overall market. But what's really important is to think about the oncology patient versus just thinking about an individual oncology test. And let's say you do therapy selection for a patient and a patient ends up on an immunotherapy. The amount of tests that a patient on an immunotherapy will have over the course of the year is very significant. And what Labcorp offers is over 6,500 different tests so that the oncologists can use all the tests that they feel is appropriate for that patient from one place. So I think when you see the number of tests per accession increasing, you can start to see that, that can be driven by some of these patients. You also saw our neurology business, and that continues to have very strong double-digit growth there as well. We haven't disclosed the size of that business yet, but it is certainly becoming a significant portion of our specialty business within Diagnostics. So those areas are important in themselves. It's important scientifically that we'd be seen as good as we are scientifically, but it's also important for us to offer to the physician all the needs that a patient may require. Operator: And our next question comes from David Westenberg of Piper Sandler. David Westenberg: So I want to go on some of the self-collection and kind of how that might change the future of lab medicine. So just a couple of different concepts I was hoping you can touch on. First, I wanted to know if there is a number of patients out there that might not be accessing health care due to maybe transportation problems or fear of needles. And then over the longer term, I wanted to get your kind of thoughts on self-collection and cost of goods sold and margin. I would assume there's going to be some changes over time in kind of costs, but I also would think about maybe some of the overhead savings or anything like that. So I do think this is a concept that's going to change the industry, maybe not next year, but maybe over the next 5 years. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that. Adam Schechter: Yes. Thank you for the question, David. And we actually invest in companies that are working on various self-collection capabilities. And there will be certain times that self-collection will make sense. So even today, there are certain tests that people can do at home with a drop of blood that they can send into a Central Laboratory, one of our laboratories, and we can run a test for them. I do think over time, you'll be able to get blood through capillaries and so forth. But when you think about like an oncology patient or a neurology patient and you think about the amount of blood and the number of tools or the number of tubes that you have to take, it's hard to see a way that home collection can get to that level. And the question is going to be for what level of patients will they want to do home collection versus if they have to take significant blood, having to go to a phlebotomist at any rate. And we continue to watch that closely. We want to make sure we have both offerings for patients depending on what their needs are and then make it a patient decision. And for the reasons you said, there's pros and cons from an economic profile to both ways, either phlebotomy or at-home collection. But I don't think it's going to be one or the other. I think you're going to need a combination of both. And I think for a relatively healthy patient looking for a limited number of tests, you could probably do at-home collection years from now. But if it's a chronically ill patient that needs significant amount of tests, it's hard to see a path forward at this moment, but we'll continue to monitor that over time. Operator: And our next question comes from Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank. Pito Chickering: A follow-up on Elizabeth's questions on BLS. Just can you talk about specifically for earlier-stage development, how the market looks, how the new deals look, like, how is your win ratio? And how is pricing and how these strategic actions can impact margins in the back half of the year? Adam Schechter: Yes. So let me start and then Julia can talk a bit about margins. So first of all, I'd say the BLS business in general had a very strong quarter, and it was driven by strength in our Central Laboratory, which is 70% of that total business. If you look at Early Development, we made some strategic decisions. We've announced all of the ones that we are going to put in place, and we've begun and we've mostly completed implementing those announcements. So we've really told everybody what we were going to do, and we went out there and we did it, and we're implementing it very well. And you see that in some of the margin expansion, obviously, for BLS. You also can see that in the growth that we're seeing in Early Development now. I think the strategic decisions we made were really smart and good decisions. If you look at RFPs, they remain strong. I wouldn't say that they've increased significantly, but they have been strong. Our win rate is very consistent. Win rate to me is kind of a sense of market share, and our market share has remained consistent for quite some time. But we are seeing study starts to be a bit more on time where historically, we're seeing the study starts delayed a bit. And I think that's helping us as we go through the first half of this year and gives us confidence as we go into the second half of the year. And if you look at the book-to-bill, for Early Development, there's always a certain amount that you count on getting the trials within the year to start. And we see those in our pipeline. We see those in our book-to-bill, and we feel good about that. And that's why we're able to raise the revenue guidance for Early Development. Julia Wang: Yes. In terms of the margin, while we do not break out the 2 business units within the BLS segment, but what I can share is the following. As you can see in the first quarter, we improved the BLS segment margin by 60 basis points versus prior year. And in the second quarter, we expanded 130 basis points of margin. When you think about the drivers, they are really primarily 2 sources. First of all, is the continued strength in the top line growth in Central Labs. And the second area of margin driver is really the strategic action that we have taken in ED, and that started contributing in a relatively meaningful way in the second quarter. Now as you move through to the third and the fourth quarter, a couple of dynamics to be mindful of. First of all, we've always said that from a seasonality and the cadence perspective, the operating margin for the BLS segment generally strengthens throughout the year. Second of all, we've also shared that the strategic actions for ED have already all been announced and largely complete. Therefore, in the second half of the year, you can expect both the strong top line growth in Central Labs and the strategic actions taken in ED to help us drive further margin expansion. Lastly, I would say, we also reiterated our expectation that for full year 2026, the margin expansion for BLS as a segment is expected to outpace that for Diagnostics. And when you combine the margin expansion expectations for both operating segments, that gives us confidence to really guide for a full year EPS growth at the midpoint of over 11% for 2026. Operator: And our next question comes from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley. Erin Wilson Wright: You launched a new consumer offering marker. Can you just detail a little bit on your overall consumer strategy at this point around DTC testing? And do you expect this to move the needle for you? How do you think about the opportunities to partner across the consumer-driven health care ecosystem versus your own organic initiatives? And it sounds like you're mindful of the profitability and durability of some of these either partnerships or offerings on the DTC front. So how do you kind of balance that? Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you for the question, Erin. So our Labcorp OnDemand business continues to perform well, and it's delivering strong double-digit growth versus last year. We've been strategically investing in our consumer space through our innovative testing solutions, and we're making sure that the customer experience is actually meeting the patients where they are, and we're giving a very good patient experience. If you look at our OnDemand now, Erin, we have about 200 biomarkers. It's actually just over 200 biomarkers, which gives them the ability to take a more proactive approach to their health care wherever they would like to take that in areas like cancer screening, men and women's health. We have things for allergies and wellness. You mentioned that we also expanded our OnDemand, where in August, we're going to launch a genetics offering called Marker by Labcorp. And that's going to give them a single destination for consumers that want both biomarker and genetic testing through Labcorp, which is a trusted brand for them. So we are really focused on bringing to market through Labcorp OnDemand. We do look at all of the other alternatives in the marketplace. I can tell you most of those companies would love to work with us, but we want to make sure that we have a good margin profile that we understand the floor of where the price can go because a lot of those consumer markets, the price continues to decline over time. And we just feel like we have so many other growth opportunities in higher margin, higher quality revenue that we're going to focus on our Central Laboratory business, our health system business, our specialty testing business, and then our Labcorp OnDemand business, which also has a relatively good margin similar to our other businesses. Operator: And our next question comes from Ann Hynes of Mizuho. Ann Hynes: I just want to focus on the ACA and also bad debt where the hospital peers have noted a deterioration in collectibility of even the insured population. And I know that you don't have much bad debt related to your hospital partnerships. But just from the physician and your service centers, can you remind us what your ACA guidance assumes for bad debt and maybe what your Labcorp policy is and if you're seeing any signs in kind of this deterioration of co-pays, that would be great. Adam Schechter: So let me start. First of all, if you look overall at our bad debt, we have not seen a significant increase in our bad debt. If you look at the ACA, we built in 30 basis point impact. The ACA total amount of our business is less than 5%. So it's very small. And we think for the full year, it's about a 30 basis point impact. If you look at our hospital business, which is kind of a surrogate to part of what you're asking, we continue to see growth in the hospital laboratory businesses to where we would expect that growth to be. And we've actually seen a bit of accelerated growth in the hospital reference business, which is a good place to be. So overall, we're not seeing the impact of some of our other customers may be seeing, and it could be the mix of patients, whether they're relatively healthy versus chronic disease and so forth. But as we look at our business, we feel confident in the guidance that we increased and provided today. We feel confident in our diagnostic business and what we provided today as well. Julia Wang: Yes. And just for perspective, right, if you look at our payer mix for the last few years, it has really stayed relatively consistent and also, as we shared earlier on the call, our bad debt as a percentage of revenue for Diagnostics really continues to be in line with our prior experiences and -- which is typically just less than around like 5% of our revenue. So as you can expect, this is an area of heightened organizational focus for us, and we continue to work extremely diligently to ensure that we manage it appropriately and effectively. Operator: And our next question comes from Tycho Peterson of Jefferies. Tycho Peterson: Maybe 2 quick ones. First, on capital allocation, just thinking about the M&A funnel. Is there a stronger appetite to look at some of the hospital labs amid some of the ACA noise that is out there? Does that change your kind of lens on M&A? And then second unrelated one, just on PAMA, any visibility into the ongoing data submissions from the independent labs? And I think there was another crush request for information as well. Just maybe touch on that as well. Adam Schechter: Yes, Tycho. So first of all, our pipeline for deals is very strong, and it continues to be very strong. And I do think that hospitals are feeling additional pressure, not just from ACA, but as they think about it, PAMA is going to occur next year that feel even some additional pressure potentially. So I would say that we have a very high bar. It has to be accretive in the first year, return its cost of capital in 2 to 3 years and be a partner that we can work very well with to help with the integration. If it meets that financial criteria, we are open to it, and that pipeline remains strong, and I'm excited about the things in our pipeline. So stay tuned. Separate and distinct from that, you mentioned PAMA. The submission date is tomorrow, the 31st. We've obviously submitted our data. We probably won't have significant insight into how many other laboratories submitted their data until October time frame. So stay tuned for that. What I can say is, the RESULTS Act continues to be focused on by our trade group as well as us. I think we're making real progress. We have real bipartisan support, both in the Senate and Congress and even the physicians in Congress have cited that they believe the RESULTS Act is a good legislative package to approve. So we're going to continue to march forward with that. It's hard to predict what happens with legislation, particularly in November with elections and so forth. Our backup will be to see if there's a way to have another delay of PAMA. And then we're always going to plan that if it occurs, we'll have a really strong plan next year. And if it doesn't occur, the plan will be even stronger. And we look forward to discussing that in more detail in September at our Analyst Day. Operator: And our next question comes from Luke Sergott of Barclays. Anna Kruszenski: This is Anna Kruszenski on for Luke. I appreciate you guys squeezing us in here. Wanted to ask about how early adoption is going for the ColoSense test that you launched in June. And if you could talk about reimbursement dynamics and just overall, how that's been going so far. Adam Schechter: Yes. No, thank you for the question. So first of all, we're excited to bring another option to market for noninvasive colorectal screening. So ColoSense is FDA approved. It's at-home collection tool-based and it's for average-risk adults above the age of 45. We think it's an opportunity to expand screening options that are out there. There's still a lot of people that should be screened that are not screened. And I look at it as another important alternative to be considered for patients. The early signals, I would say, are encouraging. We launched it nationally in June, positive market reception by the American Cancer Society. It was included in their guidelines. We have CMS coverage. Early signals are encouraging, but it's still very early. And we have to really focus on getting broad payer access, and that just takes time. So stay tuned, and we're going to continue to work on access. Operator: And our next question comes from Yujin Park of Baird. Yujin Park: I just wanted to follow up on Early Development margin. So outside of the strategic actions benefiting margin, can you talk more about the underlying margin improvement? And where do you see opportunities? And if there were any changes you see on the pricing side? Julia Wang: Yes. So let me start and Adam, please chime in. I would say a couple of things to consider, right? So when you think about margin, first and foremost, start with the top line growth. And in terms of the pricing for ED, it has been relatively flat. Therefore, to the extent that we could get into a trajectory of generating organic constant currency top line growth, that is going to be a key source of our margin expansion in addition to the strategic actions that we have taken. Now given that at this point in time, we have announced all the actions and they are largely complete. As I look out for the second half of this year, I believe we are very well positioned in continuing to expand the margin for the BLS segment, inclusive of ED to be able to contribute to our overall enterprise adjusted EPS expectation of over 11% of the midpoint of our guidance. Adam Schechter: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you all soon. Have a great day. Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in Labcorp Holdings Inc., consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Labcorp Holdings Inc. wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $397,081!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,166,221!* That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by 4x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 30, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Labcorp (LH) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated DGX has rallied as earnings momentum improved, estimates moved higher and demand broadened across its testing platform. The buy case is not one-sided. The stock’s advance has lifted valuation closer to its five-year high, while leverage, cost pressure and reimbursement uncertainty leave less room for execution missteps. Quest Diagnostics reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.12 per share, up 19.1% year over year. The result surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%, extending a period of positive earnings momentum. Revenues rose 10.2% year over year to $3.04 billion and beat the consensus mark by 2.1%. Growth was supported by a 13.1% increase in requisition volume, with Diagnostic Information Services benefiting from physician, hospital and consumer channels. Physician channel revenues increased in the high single-digit range, helped by new customer wins, higher business with existing customers and expanded health plan access. Hospital revenues grew at a double-digit rate, while QuestHealth.com continued to see demand for wellness panels and newer services such as thyroid testing. Quest Diagnostics now expects 2026 revenues of $11.95 billion to $12.05 billion, up from its prior range of $11.78 billion to $11.90 billion. The revised outlook implies revenue growth of 8.3-9.2%. Adjusted earnings are projected at $11.05 to $11.25 per share, compared with the previous range of $10.63 to $10.83. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings has also moved higher, with the current-year earnings estimate up 4.1% over the past four weeks. The higher outlook reflects stronger testing demand and better expected earnings conversion. It also supports the case that Quest’s base business, acquisitions and advanced diagnostics portfolio are contributing to near-term growth. Valuation is the main counterweight after the share-price run. DGX trades at 20.34X forward 12-month earnings, above its five-year median of 16.16X and at the high end of its five-year range of 11.34X to 20.65X. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Shares recently traded at $235.22, compared with a $252 price target. That target still points to positive potential, but the upside is moderate after gains of 24.4% in the past three months and 39.4% over the past year. The stock also trades slightly above the S&P 500 on a forward earnings basis. Investors are paying for improved visibility, but the valuation leaves less cushion if volumes slow, costs rise or margin recovery takes longer. Quest Diagnostics ended the second quarter with $626 million in cash and cash equivalents, while long-term debt stood at $5.63 billion. Elevated debt could limit flexibility as the company invests in acquisitions, automation and Project Nova. Margin trends also require monitoring. Adjusted operating margin declined 40 basis points to 16.5% in the second quarter, as higher service costs, Project Nova spending, supplemental deferred compensation and the lower-margin Corewell and Fresenius mix weighed on profitability. Reimbursement remains another pressure point. Management continues to assume a 30-basis-point 2026 revenue impact tied to the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act exchange subsidies, with a larger second-half effect still possible. Labcorp Holdings Inc. LH remains a relevant peer because it operates in the same diagnostics and laboratory services market where price, access, turnaround time and service quality matter. DaVita Inc. DVA adds context for kidney-care exposure, an area where Quest has broadened capabilities through the Fresenius Medical Care collaboration. Based on short-term price targets offered by 16 analysts, the average price target for Quest Diagnostics comes to $242.75, representing an increase of 3.2% from the last closing price. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research DGX still has a constructive near-term profile. The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), which reflects favorable earnings estimate revision trends over the one-to-three-month horizon. The Style Scores add nuance. DGX has a Momentum Score of A and a VGM Score of A, while its Value Score and Growth Score are both B. That mix points to solid overall characteristics, with momentum currently standing out more than the valuation margin of safety. For investors, the stock remains worth watching, but selectivity is warranted. Earnings momentum, higher guidance and positive estimate revisions support the near-term case, while valuation, leverage and margin pressure argue against chasing the stock without regard to entry point. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report DaVita Inc. (DVA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Labcorp Holdings Inc. LH reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $4.99 per share, up 14.9% year over year. The metric beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.18%. On a GAAP basis, earnings per share (EPS) came in at $3.64, up 28.5% from the prior-year quarter. Net earnings attributable to Labcorp rose to $298.7 million from $237.9 million. Revenues rose 5.8% to $3.73 billion and surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.36%. Enterprise revenues increased on 4.2% organic growth, a 1.2% contribution from acquisitions net of divestitures and a 0.4% foreign currency benefit. The mix indicates that underlying business activity accounted for most of the top-line expansion. Following the announcement, Labcorp shares dipped 5.6% in the pre-market session today. Diagnostics Laboratories (Dx) revenues rose 5.5% to $2.90 billion. Organic growth was 3.6%, while acquisitions net of divestitures added 1.9%. Total requisition volume increased 3%, including 1.8% organic growth and a 1.3% acquisition contribution. Price and mix improved 2.5%, with organic price and mix up 1.8%. Biopharma Laboratory Services (BLS) revenues advanced 6.5% to $836.2 million. Organic growth was 6.2%, and foreign exchange added 1.8%, partly offset by a 1.4% reduction from acquisitions net of divestitures. Central Labs revenues climbed 9.8%, while Early Development revenues declined 1.4%. Gross profit increased to $1.11 billion from $1.05 billion a year earlier. Gross margin was 29.8%, up roughly 10 basis points (bps) from the prior-year quarter, as revenue growth outpaced the increase in the cost of revenues. Labcorp Holdings Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Labcorp Holdings Inc. Quote Adjusted operating income increased to $588.7 million from $531.6 million. The adjusted operating margin widened 70 bps to 15.8%, reflecting organic growth and operating efficiencies. Reported operating income was $451.6 million compared with $394.5 million. The reported operating margin improved 90 bps to 12.1%, while selling, general and administrative expenses declined to $577.2 million from $579.3 million. Labcorp exited the second quarter of 2026 with cash and cash equivalents of $141.8 million compared with $981.1 million at the end of the first quarter. Debt totaled $5.86 billion at quarter-end. Cumulative net cash provided by operating activities at the end of the second quarter was $637 million compared with $639.1 million a year ago. Labcorp invested $225.7 million in acquisitions, repurchased $353.8 million of stock and paid $58.7 million in dividends during the quarter. It also retired $500 million of senior notes. The board increased the share repurchase authorization by $1 billion, bringing the remaining authorization to $1.4 billion. Management raised full-year enterprise revenue growth guidance to 5.4-6.3% from 5-6.1%. The updated range implies revenues of $14.71-$14.83 billion. Dx growth is now projected at 5.3-6%, while BLS growth is expected at 5.5-6.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year revenues is pegged at $14.71 billion, implying growth of 5.4%. Adjusted earnings guidance increased to $18.10-$18.55 per share, from the earlier $17.70-$18.35 range. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the metric is pegged at $18.00. Free cash flow guidance remained $1.24-$1.36 billion. Labcorp exited the second quarter of 2026 with both earnings and revenues beating estimates. Both segments contributed to the quarter's performance. The company expanded its capabilities in oncology and other high-growth specialty areas, strengthened its position as the partner of choice for health systems, biopharmaceutical companies and regional and local laboratories and advanced the use of technology to improve the experience for consumers and providers. Both gross and operating margins expanded during the quarter, which is highly encouraging. Labcorp currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Intuitive Surgical ISRG, Quest Diagnostics DGX and Medpace MEDP. Intuitive Surgical, carrying a Zacks Rank #2, reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $2.80, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12.9%. Revenues of $2.89 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.1%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. ISRG has an earnings yield of 3.1% compared to the industry’s negative 3% yield. The company beat earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 16.53%. Quest Diagnostics, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $3.12, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 11%. Revenues of $3.04 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.1%. DGX has an earnings yield of 4.7%, almost in line with the industry’s yield. The company’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 5.77%. Medpace, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present, posted second-quarter 2026 adjusted EPS of $4.25, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.17%. Revenues of $707.3 million outperformed the consensus mark by 1.12%. MEDP has an historical five-year earnings growth rate of 30.5% compared with the industry’s 5.6% growth. In the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings beat of 10.16%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Labcorp Holdings Inc. (LH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG) : Free Stock Analysis Report Medpace Holdings, Inc. (MEDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research