VEEV vs IQV Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
Veeva Systems and IQVIA both serve the pharmaceutical industry but with different products and business models. Veeva is a pure SaaS software company for life sciences — providing cloud applications for sales, clinical, regulatory, and quality management. IQVIA is a services and data company — running clinical trials as a CRO while selling proprietary healthcare data. Both are deeply embedded in pharmaceutical operations with high switching costs, but Veeva's pure SaaS model has better margin potential while IQVIA's data asset and CRO scale create unique competitive advantages.
VEEV vs IQV is the pure-play life sciences SaaS company with deep regulatory workflow expertise and exceptional Vault switching costs (Veeva) versus the world's largest CRO and proprietary healthcare data company combining clinical trial services with 1B+ patient record analytics (IQVIA) — software-only SaaS model vs integrated CRO services and data analytics platform.
IQV holds the edge across 3 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. IQV leads on both 1-year return (+8.87%) and forward P/E (12.78x vs 15.28x for VEEV), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for VEEV (+60.13%) than for IQV (+25.07%).
- →prefer pure-play life sciences SaaS with Vault's unmatched regulatory document and GxP workflow capabilities creating exceptional switching costs
- →value Veeva's cross-sell from commercial CRM to R&D Vault within the same pharmaceutical company — expanding from one department to all departments at major pharma
- →want high-margin software recurring revenue from a vertical SaaS leader where deep domain expertise defends against general-purpose SaaS competition
- →are comfortable with CRM platform migration risk from Salesforce to Veeva CRM, biotech funding cycle sensitivity, and IQVIA OCE competition
- →prefer the combination of proprietary healthcare data and CRO clinical trial services that IQVIA uniquely integrates — no competitor has both at IQVIA's scale
- →value IQVIA's 1B+ patient record dataset as a strategic data moat creating analytical advantages for pharmaceutical go/no-go decisions and trial design
- →want life sciences services exposure with CRO backlog providing revenue visibility and recurring data subscription income providing stability
- →are comfortable with CRO clinical trial demand cyclicality during biotech downturns, Veeva software competition in technology products, and AI disrupting traditional healthcare analytics
| Metric | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|
| AI score | 50.3 | 51.2 |
| AI rank | #454 | #391 |
| Latest close | $153.30 | $167.77 |
| 1M return | -6.13% | -3.12% |
| 6M return | -28.85% | -24.23% |
| 1Y return | -45.53% | +8.87% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $5.45K (-45.5%) started 2025-06-18 | $10.85K (+8.5%) started 2025-06-18 |
| 5Y ago | $5K (-50.0%) started 2021-06-18 | $6.89K (-31.1%) started 2021-06-21 |
| 10Y ago | $44.71K (+347.1%) started 2016-06-20 | $26.34K (+163.4%) started 2016-06-20 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $24.9B | $30.29B |
| Trailing P/E | 27.18 | 22.51 |
| Forward P/E | 15.28 | 12.78 |
| Price/Sales | 7.50 | 1.70 |
| EV/Revenue | 5.82 | 2.68 |
| Analyst target | $245.48 | $226.95 |
| Target upside | +60.13% | +25.07% |
| Metric | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth | 16.30% | 8.40% |
| Earnings growth | 14.60% | 15.00% |
| EPS growth | +14.60% | +15.00% |
| FCF margin | +37.95% | +12.97% |
| Operating margin | N/A | 13.61% |
| Profit margin | 28.37% | 8.33% |
| ROIC proxy | 13.93% | 22.49% |
| Return on equity | 13.93% | 22.49% |
| Dividend yield | 0.00% | N/A |
| Beta | 0.95 | 1.22 |
| Debt/equity | 1.41 | 255.43 |
| Current ratio | 4.74 | 0.75 |
| Quick ratio | 4.67 | 0.66 |
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growth | -45.53% | +8.51% |
| CAGR | -45.55% | +8.52% | |
| Sharpe ratio | -1.63 | 0.29 | |
| Max drawdown | 50.55% | 35.87% | |
| Max daily drop | 9.77% | 11.88% | |
| Max wkly drop | 16.81% | 23.20% | |
| 5Y | Growth | -50.02% | -31.09% |
| CAGR | -12.95% | -7.19% | |
| Sharpe ratio | -0.30 | -0.19 | |
| Max drawdown | 55.69% | 51.52% | |
| Max daily drop | 16.24% | 11.88% | |
| Max wkly drop | 21.64% | 23.20% | |
| 10Y | Growth | +347.07% | +163.42% |
| CAGR | +16.17% | +10.18% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.47 | 0.32 | |
| Max drawdown | 55.69% | 51.52% | |
| Max daily drop | 16.24% | 16.54% | |
| Max wkly drop | 21.64% | 28.34% |
| Category | VEEV | IQV |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Veeva Systems Inc. | IQVIA Holdings Inc. |
| Sector | Technology | Healthcare |
| Industry | N/A | Diagnostics & Research |
| Core business | Veeva Systems provides cloud-based software exclusively for the life sciences (pharmaceutical and biotech) industry. Key products include Vault (clinical, regulatory, and quality document management), CRM (commercial sales force automation for pharma reps), and Data Cloud (healthcare professional and patient data). Veeva's single-industry focus creates deep domain expertise — Vault is designed specifically for FDA submission workflows, GxP documentation, and clinical data management in ways that general-purpose SaaS cannot match. Veeva is transitioning away from Salesforce infrastructure to its own Veeva CRM platform. | IQVIA is the world's largest clinical contract research organization (CRO) and healthcare data company, providing clinical trial management, healthcare analytics, and pharmaceutical data services. IQVIA combines clinical CRO services (running clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies) with the world's largest proprietary healthcare dataset — covering 1 billion+ patient records and prescription data from 100+ countries. IQVIA's data enables pharmaceutical companies to make go/no-go decisions, target physicians, and analyze real-world evidence. |
| Investor focus | Investors track Vault and Data Cloud revenue (the primary growth drivers), Veeva CRM migration from Salesforce platform, and R&D Cloud (Clinical Suite) adoption. | Investors track Technology & Analytics Solutions (TAS) revenue, Research & Development Solutions (RDS/CRO) revenue and backlog, and the combined data + clinical services competitive advantage. |
- →Life sciences vertical focus creates deep regulatory and compliance expertise — Veeva's Vault is optimized for FDA/EMA regulatory submissions in ways competitors cannot easily match without equal domain investment
- →Switching costs are exceptional: Veeva's Vault stores all regulatory submissions, clinical study documents, and quality records — migrating away from Veeva requires rebuilding the regulatory document backbone
- →Both commercial (CRM) and clinical/regulatory (Vault) products create cross-sell from commercial pharma relationships to R&D organizations within the same company
- →World's largest proprietary healthcare dataset — IQVIA's 1B+ patient records across 100 countries create a data asset competitors cannot replicate
- →CRO services combined with proprietary data creates unique advantages — IQVIA can identify the best clinical trial sites and patient populations using its own data network
- →Recurring data subscription revenue provides earnings stability through pharmaceutical industry cycles
- →Veeva's CRM migration from Salesforce infrastructure to its own platform (Veeva CRM, replacing Salesforce-based Veeva CRM) is a multi-year risk if migrations disappoint pharma customers
- →IQVIA's Orchestrated Customer Engagement (OCE) competes with Veeva CRM in pharma commercial software
- →Biotech funding downturns reduce Veeva's small biotech customer expansion as startups cut software spending
- →Clinical trial demand is cyclical — biotech funding downturns and pharmaceutical pipeline reductions reduce CRO demand
- →Veeva's commercial and clinical software directly competes with IQVIA's technology products for pharmaceutical technology spending
- →AI is disrupting healthcare data analytics — new entrants with AI-powered clinical trial design tools could challenge IQVIA's data incumbent position
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