LANTHEUS HOLDINGS, INC. (LNTH): what the price requires
At today's price, LANTHEUS HOLDINGS, INC. (LNTH) is priced for +19.5% growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/LNTH
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | LNTH |
| Company | LANTHEUS HOLDINGS, INC. |
| Current price | $104.68/sh |
| Composition | Radiopharmaceutical Oncology 64% / Precision Diagnostics 32% / Strategic Partnerships and Other Revenue 4% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 5.9% |
| Operating margin today | 20.8% |
| Margin compression implied | -14.9pp |
| Implied growth | 19.5% |
| Multiple paid | 22x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 7, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 9.2% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~7.2pp.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.03σ |
| cohort percentile (of 112 peers) | 52 |
| sustained it ~5 years at this level | 41% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is justified by relative-multiple; asset-based/earnings-power/growth-DCF land below the price.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 2.28x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.73x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.16x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 2.07x | 3 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Relative Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Growth
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=18)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $50.58 | 2.07x | yes | FCF base $0.4B, growth 1% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.6%, WACC 9.2%, 5yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $63.83 | 1.64x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 20.2x / 22.2x / 24.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $89.89 | 1.16x | yes | P/E 24x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 20.4x / 24.0x / 27.6x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 16x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $45.86 | 2.28x | yes | BV/sh $18.43, ROE (TTM) 23.0%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $72.18 | 1.45x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $44.15 | 2.37x | yes | Rev $1.5B, growth 1% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.8x / 4.5x / 5.1x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $50.28 | 2.08x | yes | EPS $4.19, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=16.33 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $25.19 | 4.16x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.26B × (1−24%) / WACC 9.2% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $66.68 | 1.57x | yes | BV $18.43 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 23.0% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $41.69 | 2.51x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $4.19 × BVPS $18.43) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $77.30 | 1.35x | yes | EBITDA $0.29B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $73.74 | 1.42x | yes | FCF $407.7M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $60.52 | 1.73x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.33B (FCF $0.41B − SBC $0.08B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $135.20 | 0.77x | yes | EPS $4.19 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $15.97 | 6.55x | yes | BV $18.43 × (ROIC 8.0% / WACC 9.2%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $94.03 | 1.11x | yes | Revenue $1.55B × sector P/S 4.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $157.13 | 0.67x | yes | EPS $4.19 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $45.30 | 2.31x | yes | EPS $4.19 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $71.8m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 0.30x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 0.23x |
| Interest coverage | 16.1x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -1.6% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- Lantheus is a radiopharmaceuticals company whose engine is PYLARIFY, the leading prostate-cancer PET imaging agent, alongside DEFINITY for echocardiography and a growing neurology imaging line.
- The decisive number is PYLARIFY's trajectory: its revenue fell 6.5% year over year to $240.9 million as the prostate-imaging market growth slowed and the agent's transitional reimbursement advantage expired, so the company's single largest product is shrinking.
- Watch the new formulation and pipeline: management won FDA approval for a new PYLARIFY formulation, TRUVU, with a phased launch starting in the fourth quarter, so the marker is whether that and the newer imaging agents offset the legacy decline.
Bull Case
One number drives the Lantheus thesis, and it is PYLARIFY's position as the leading prostate-cancer imaging agent. The 10-K frames the goal directly: to "maintain PYLARIFY as the most utilized prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET imaging agent". PSMA PET imaging is the standard of care for staging and monitoring prostate cancer, one of the most common cancers in men, and being the category leader in a clinically essential diagnostic is a durable position. Even with the recent decline, PYLARIFY at $240.9 million in a single quarter is the dominant product in its market, and the company is defending it with a next-generation formulation rather than ceding the field.
The portfolio underneath PYLARIFY is doing real work and diversifying the story. DEFINITY, the ultrasound enhancing agent for echocardiography, grew 6.8% to $84.6 million on volume demand, a steady cash generator that anchors the base, and the newer neurology imaging agent grew 14.3% sequentially. The growth in the non-PYLARIFY lines is the evidence that Lantheus is more than a single product, and it is the part of the business the market underweights when it fixates on the legacy decline. The financial quality is genuine: the company generates strong free cash flow, carries a net debt position of only about $72 million against nearly $500 million of liquid assets, and operates at a high-teens operating margin. That balance sheet gives Lantheus the flexibility to fund its pipeline and pursue acquisitions in radiopharmaceuticals, a field consolidating around exactly its expertise.
The catalysts ahead are concrete regulatory wins. Lantheus secured FDA approval for a new PYLARIFY formulation, TRUVU, with a phased launch beginning in the fourth quarter, and a tentative approval for another pipeline product. A reformulated lead product can extend the franchise's life and defend share against new entrants, and a disciplined pricing strategy in a market the company still expects to grow in the low teens means the volume base is not collapsing, just decelerating. The bull case is that Lantheus uses its clean balance sheet and category leadership to manage PYLARIFY's maturation while the diagnostics and therapeutics pipeline grows into the next leg, turning a single-product story into a radiopharmaceutical platform.
Bear Case
The bear case begins with a qualitative observation, not a ratio: the company's most important product is shrinking, and the price assumes the opposite. PYLARIFY revenue fell 6.5% year over year, and the decline is not a stumble but a structural shift. The 10-K telegraphed it, warning about maintaining the product's leadership "after the expiration of transitional pass-through payment status at the end of 2024" and flagging the risk of losing share to competitors, including "any potential generic entrant to the market". Transitional pass-through status was a reimbursement advantage that effectively subsidized PYLARIFY's adoption; its expiration removes a tailwind and exposes the agent to pricing pressure and competition just as the underlying PSMA PET market growth slows to the low teens. The single largest revenue line is decelerating into a more competitive, less subsidized market.
Now hold the price against what the business has demonstrated, and the disconnect is stark. At roughly 22 times company-wide operating income, the price requires operating profit to grow about 20% a year for five years, against a company whose largest product is in decline and whose own full-year guidance implies roughly flat overall revenue at $1.4 to $1.45 billion. The arithmetic does not reconcile: 20% profit growth from a flat-revenue, declining-flagship base requires either a dramatic margin expansion or a new product ramping fast enough to replace PYLARIFY's lost volume, and neither is in evidence yet. Only the relative-multiple lens reaches the price; the asset-value, earnings-power, and even the forward-growth methods all read the stock as expensive, with the discounted-cash-flow models landing at roughly half the price because they credit the company's actual near-flat growth rather than a 20% acceleration.
The structural vulnerability is product concentration in a field where reimbursement and competition move fast. A radiopharmaceutical company lives on a handful of approved agents, and PYLARIFY's outsized contribution means its decline drags the whole company until the pipeline catches up. The new TRUVU formulation is a defense, but reformulations extend franchises; they rarely reverse a market-growth slowdown or restore a lost reimbursement advantage. Competitors with their own pass-through status and new PSMA agents are entering precisely the window the bull needs to be quiet. The clean balance sheet is real and removes solvency risk, so the bear case is not about survival. It is that a stock priced for 20% profit growth, with its flagship in decline and its overall revenue guided flat, is paying a growth multiple for a maturing diagnostics business, and the gap between that price and the demonstrated trajectory is the risk.
Valuation
The price assumes an acceleration the recent numbers do not show. At roughly 22 times company-wide operating income, the market is paying for operating profit to grow about 20% a year for five years. That is a demanding requirement for a company whose largest product, PYLARIFY, is declining and whose full-year revenue guidance of $1.4 to $1.45 billion implies a roughly flat top line. The bet, stated plainly, is that the pipeline and the reformulated lead product reignite growth from a base that is currently treading water.
The method split is one-sided toward caution. Only the relative-multiple lens reaches the price, anchored on a sector P/E near 24 times, which credits Lantheus with a healthcare-diagnostics multiple. Every other family reads the stock as expensive. The forward-growth lens is the telling one: the perpetual-growth DCF, crediting the company's actual roughly 1% recent growth, lands at less than half the price, and even the exit-multiple version, holding today's EV/EBITDA flat, sits well below it. The earnings-power method lands below the price, and the asset-value methods land at roughly half. When even the growth-crediting methods say expensive because the demonstrated growth is near zero, the only support for the price is a peer multiple applied to a business the peer multiple assumes is growing, which is the assumption in question.
The cohort comparison frames the multiple. The peer set is high-quality life-science and diagnostics names, Bio-Techne, Repligen, IDEXX, Qiagen, and Organon, businesses that command premium multiples for durable, growing franchises. Lantheus trades at a multiple in that neighborhood while its flagship declines, which is the mismatch the bear identifies: a growth-cohort multiple on a name whose growth has stalled. Solvency is genuinely not a concern here, and it is the bull's strongest factual point: net debt of only about $72 million against nearly $500 million of liquid assets means the company has ample capacity to fund its pipeline and acquire, so the downside is not a balance-sheet failure. The decisive fact is the growth gap. The buyer at this price is underwriting a 20% profit-growth path from a business guiding to flat revenue with a declining lead product, and the burden of proof sits entirely on a pipeline that has not yet demonstrated it can carry that weight.
Catalysts
The Q1 2026 print captured the tension precisely. Revenue was $377.3 million and GAAP diluted EPS jumped to $1.80 from $1.02, with adjusted EPS of $1.46, but the product detail told the real story: PYLARIFY fell 6.5% to $240.9 million, while DEFINITY grew 6.8% to $84.6 million and the neurology agent grew 14.3% sequentially. The headline earnings strength sat atop a declining flagship, which is the dynamic the whole thesis turns on. Management reaffirmed full-year revenue guidance of $1.4 to $1.45 billion and adjusted EPS of $5.00 to $5.25, implying a roughly flat top line for the year.
The regulatory catalysts are the defense and the hope. Lantheus achieved FDA approval for a new PYLARIFY formulation, TRUVU, with a phased launch beginning in the fourth quarter of 2026, and a tentative approval for another pipeline product. The TRUVU transition is the most important near-term event: a successful relaunch could stabilize the franchise and defend share against new PSMA agents, while a slow uptake would leave the legacy decline unchecked. Management framed the broader PSMA PET market as growing in the low teens for 2026, slower than before, with disciplined pricing to protect share against competitors, some of whom still carry the reimbursement advantage PYLARIFY has lost.
The watch items are sharply defined. Track the PYLARIFY revenue trajectory and the TRUVU launch uptake through the fourth quarter, since that determines whether the flagship stabilizes. Watch the growth of DEFINITY and the neurology line, the parts of the portfolio that have to do more of the work, and the competitive landscape in PSMA imaging, including new agents and any changes in reimbursement status. With a clean balance sheet, watch also for acquisitions, since the company has the capacity to buy growth, and an accretive deal in radiopharmaceuticals could change the trajectory the static methods currently see. For a stock priced for acceleration off a flat base, the catalyst that matters most is the first quarter that shows the pipeline replacing the legacy decline rather than merely cushioning it.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Radiopharmaceuticals (consolidated) (reported)
- CPRX (CATALYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SUPN (SUPERNUS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- HRMY (HARMONY BIOSCIENCES HOLDINGS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ALKS (Alkermes plc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- JAZZ (Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- INDV (Indivior Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- OGN (Organon & Co.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AMRX (AMNEAL PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Q1 FY2026 earnings release · FY2024 10-K