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Pharma Wins And New Partnerships Will Drive Cloud Momentum In Coming Quarters

Published
29 Aug 24
Updated
11 Nov 25
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AnalystConsensusTarget's Fair Value
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1Y
27.3%
7D
0.6%

Author's Valuation

US$320.627.4% undervalued intrinsic discount

AnalystConsensusTarget Fair Value

Last Update 11 Nov 25

VEEV: Continued Momentum And New Commitments Will Likely Sustain Premium Outlook

Analysts have significantly raised their price targets on Veeva Systems, with recent updates moving targets as high as $380. They cite the company's strong sales growth prospects and solid momentum, driven by accelerating CRM customer commitments and new partnerships.

Analyst Commentary

Analysts remain divided on Veeva Systems' near-term trajectory, resulting in meaningful adjustments to both price targets and stock ratings. Their research updates highlight a mix of supportive growth drivers and several areas of caution that continue to shape sentiment and valuation.

Bullish Takeaways
  • Bullish analysts have raised Veeva's price targets significantly, citing strong sales growth prospects and successful execution in both Commercial and R&D business lines.
  • The growing momentum of Veeva Vault CRM is a key theme, with multiple top-20 pharma customers completing commitments and deployments. This reflects customer confidence and reinforces Veeva's position as a leader in pharma CRM solutions.
  • Strategic partnerships, such as with Iqvia, and ongoing gains in Crossix analytics are seen as important drivers for revenue acceleration and continued outperformance relative to consensus.
  • Successful product go-lives, milestones in AI integration, and new customer wins are contributing to larger and more frequent beat and raise quarters. These factors support strong investor optimism and higher valuation multiples.
Bearish Takeaways
  • Some bearish analysts express caution regarding Veeva's extended valuation, emphasizing that recent strong performance may be largely priced in. They also note that broader market pullbacks could temper near-term upside.
  • Concerns persist about macroeconomic uncertainties and the company's ongoing assumption of a stable environment in its guidance, which may expose growth projections if the industry faces a downturn.
  • Cautious views point to billings occasionally falling short of elevated expectations. Even in the face of solid revenue growth and earnings beats, this could potentially signal limited upside surprise going forward.
  • A few analysts maintain neutral or underweight ratings, noting that with many top customers already committed, incremental growth could become more challenging. They also caution that competitive pressures may intensify as alternatives enter the market.

What's in the News

  • Veeva Systems will host an Analyst/Investor Day, where the company will provide insights into its strategy and financial outlook (Key Developments).
  • Gilead Sciences has committed to Veeva Vault CRM by adopting applications that include integrated AI agents to enhance commercial efficiency and effectiveness (Key Developments).
  • The company issued new and updated earnings guidance, projecting fiscal third quarter revenues between $790 million and $793 million, and full-year revenues between $3,134 million and $3,140 million (Key Developments).

Valuation Changes

  • Fair Value Estimate remains unchanged at $320.62 per share. This reflects analysts' consensus on the company's intrinsic value.
  • Discount Rate has risen slightly, from 7.89 percent to 8.15 percent. This indicates a marginal increase in the risk premium applied to future cash flows.
  • Revenue Growth Projection is essentially unchanged, staying around 13.32 percent. This signals stable expectations for top-line expansion.
  • Net Profit Margin Forecast remains steady, holding at approximately 31.70 percent. This points to consistency in profitability assumptions.
  • Future P/E Ratio has increased marginally, moving from 49.41x to 49.77x. This reflects a slight uptick in valuation relative to earnings forecasts.

Key Takeaways

  • Resolution of interoperability challenges and AI integration strengthens Veeva's market position, enabling broader product adoption and greater revenue and margin growth opportunities.
  • Expansion into new verticals and product suites, combined with enhanced consulting services, increases recurring revenue, customer retention, and long-term earnings predictability.
  • Competitive pressures, customer concentration, adoption hurdles, and heavy investment requirements threaten Veeva's revenue growth, margin stability, and long-term earnings predictability.

Catalysts

About Veeva Systems
    Provides cloud-based software for the life sciences industry in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
What are the underlying business or industry changes driving this perspective?
  • The resolution of the long-standing dispute with IQVIA removes critical data interoperability barriers, enabling Veeva to fully integrate industry-leading datasets into its Commercial Cloud, which should materially expand its addressable market, improve product adoption across multiple commercial applications, and accelerate top-line revenue growth over the next several years.
  • Veeva's rapid progress embedding advanced AI agents directly within its Vault platform-across both R&D and Commercial suites-positions it as an essential workflow and automation partner amid the rising complexity of personalized medicine, genomics, and data-driven trials, potentially supporting higher pricing power, platform stickiness, and net margin expansion in the medium to long term.
  • Deepening adoption of multi-product suites and expansion into adjacent verticals (such as medtech and consumer health), supported by a broadened product portfolio now unencumbered by historical partner restrictions, increases recurring revenue streams and improves earnings predictability.
  • The digital transformation and cloudification of healthcare workflows continues to be a powerful industry tailwind, with Veeva's role as a system-of-record for life sciences companies further reinforced by strong customer demand, ongoing wins among the top 20 pharma, and increased willingness of large customers (due to greater interoperability with IQVIA) to consolidate more spend with Veeva-positively impacting both revenue growth and gross margin over time.
  • The integration of Veeva Business Consulting with its technology suite creates a unique change management value proposition for clients undergoing digital and AI-driven process transformations, increasing customer retention, enabling the company to capture a greater share of large enterprise transformation budgets, and thereby supporting long-term revenue and net margin expansion.

Veeva Systems Earnings and Revenue Growth

Veeva Systems Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

How have these above catalysts been quantified?
  • Analysts are assuming Veeva Systems's revenue will grow by 12.8% annually over the next 3 years.
  • Analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 27.3% today to 31.3% in 3 years time.
  • Analysts expect earnings to reach $1.3 billion (and earnings per share of $7.72) by about September 2028, up from $809.9 million today.
  • In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 50.3x on those 2028 earnings, down from 57.2x today. This future PE is lower than the current PE for the US Healthcare Services industry at 57.2x.
  • Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 1.22% per year for the next 3 years.
  • To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 7.82%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Veeva Systems Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Veeva Systems Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

What could happen that would invalidate this narrative?
  • Ongoing resistance to change among customers, particularly evidenced by slow adoption and agentic fatigue, could temper the pace and ultimate success of AI and new product rollouts, limiting long-term revenue growth from anticipated innovation cycles.
  • The highly competitive landscape-with tech giants like Salesforce, Microsoft, and SAP expanding into verticalized healthcare-raises risk that Veeva's "best of breed" positioning could be challenged, heightening customer churn risk and exerting downward pressure on both recurring revenues and margins.
  • Veeva's growing dependence on major pharmaceutical customers (e.g., concentration in top 20 accounts on Vault CRM) increases exposure to customer consolidation and bargaining power, making future pricing and renewal rates less predictable and potentially compressing earnings and gross margins.
  • Persistent macroeconomic uncertainty or constrained biopharma R&D budgets may lead to prolonged deal cycles, increased project lumpiness, and slower-than-expected migration and adoption of core products like Vault CRM, which can negatively affect near and long-term revenue growth.
  • The significant investments needed for product development, platform expansion (including AI and new commercial cloud products), and market entry into adjacent verticals could fail to deliver targeted ROI; rising R&D and go-to-market expenses without proportional top-line growth would erode net margins and impact future earnings.

Valuation

How have all the factors above been brought together to estimate a fair value?
  • The analysts have a consensus price target of $316.714 for Veeva Systems based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $362.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $222.0.
  • In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $4.3 billion, earnings will come to $1.3 billion, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 50.3x, assuming you use a discount rate of 7.8%.
  • Given the current share price of $282.68, the analyst price target of $316.71 is 10.7% higher.
  • We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.

How well do narratives help inform your perspective?

Disclaimer

AnalystConsensusTarget is a tool utilizing a Large Language Model (LLM) that ingests data on consensus price targets, forecasted revenue and earnings figures, as well as the transcripts of earnings calls to produce qualitative analysis. The narratives produced by AnalystConsensusTarget are general in nature and are based solely on analyst data and publicly-available material published by the respective companies. These scenarios are not indicative of the company's future performance and are exploratory in nature. Simply Wall St has no position in the company(s) mentioned. Simply Wall St may provide the securities issuer or related entities with website advertising services for a fee, on an arm's length basis. These relationships have no impact on the way we conduct our business, the content we host, or how our content is served to users. The price targets and estimates used are consensus data, and do not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and they do not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Note that AnalystConsensusTarget's analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

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