ICON Stock Up After Q2 Results Signal Growing Confidence In Biopharma Recovery

Clinical research organization ICON plc ICLR stock is surging on Thursday after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter financial results and raised its fiscal 2025 sales guidance.

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The Dublin-based company reported quarterly sales of $2.02 billion on Wednesday after-hours, up 0.8% year over year and beating the consensus of $1.97 billion.

Icon reported adjusted earnings of $3.26 per share, beating the consensus of $3.20.

CEO Dr. Steve Cutler said, “ICON made solid progress in quarter two despite the continuing challenges within the clinical development and macro-economic environments.  ICON’s innovative solutions continue to resonate with customers, leading to strong progression in gross business wins in the quarter, which increased 11% sequentially over quarter one.”

Gross business wins in the quarter were $2.97 billion, representing an increase of 10.6% from quarter one 2025.

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Net business wins in the quarter of $2.06 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was $396.0 million or 19.6% of revenue, representing an increase of 1.4% sequentially.

Share Buyback: The board of directors authorized an expansion of $500 million to the current share repurchase program, bringing the remaining total value of authorized share repurchases to $1 billion.

Guidance: Icon narrowed fiscal year 2025 adjusted earnings per share guidance from $12.75-$14.25 to $13-$14 compared to the consensus of $13.26.

The research company raised 2025 sales guidance from $7.75 billion-$8.15 billion to $7.85 billion-$8.15 billion compared to the consensus of $7.95 billion.

William Blair wrote the update’s highlight was ICON’s impressive bookings. Net bookings beat target by 8%, and net book-to-bill of 1.02x came in well above the analyst’s 0.96x target.

Analyst Max Smock wrote on Wednesday, “Overall, this is a very positive update and should add even more fuel to the growing narrative that biopharma demand has bottomed … While the numbers suggest this is very much the case, demand commentary in ICON’s release and earnings presentation remained lukewarm, with management pointing to continuing challenges within the clinical development and macroeconomic environments and noting that the clinical market remains variable due to macro uncertainty, muted funding, and cautious behavior.”

Excluding the large COVID-19 trial cleared from the backlog in the second quarter, cancellations improved slightly compared to the first quarter, 2.5% of the backlog versus 2.7%. However, the rate is still higher than the company’s goal of 2%.

William Blair reiterates Outperform rating.

ICLR Price Action: ICON stock is up 16.81% at $196.11 at publication on Thursday.

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