Lab services company Charles River Laboratories (NYSE:CRL) will be reporting results this Wednesday before the bell. Here’s what to expect.
Charles River Laboratories beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.1% last quarter, reporting revenues of $1.00 billion, flat year on year. It was a satisfactory quarter for the company, with a narrow beat of analysts’ organic revenue estimates.
Is Charles River Laboratories a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Charles River Laboratories’s revenue to decline 2.2% year on year to $980.9 million, a further deceleration from the 1.1% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $2.35 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Charles River Laboratories has only missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates once over the last two years, exceeding top-line expectations by 2.5% on average.
Looking at Charles River Laboratories’s peers in the drug development inputs & services segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Medpace delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 32%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3.3%, and West Pharmaceutical Services reported revenues up 7.5%, topping estimates by 1.5%. Medpace traded down 15.9% following the results while West Pharmaceutical Services was up 1.8%.
Read our full analysis of Medpace’s results here and West Pharmaceutical Services’s results here.
Debates over possible tariffs and corporate tax adjustments have raised questions about economic stability in 2025. While some of the drug development inputs & services stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 3.7% on average over the last month. Charles River Laboratories is down 26.1% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $215.73 (compared to the current share price of $161.35).
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