West Pharmaceutical Services Inc (WST)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
The business works in principle, but one material question is open. As long as it stays open, our findings do not carry a quality verdict.
Whoever buys today is betting that the GLP-1 surge of the first quarter of 2026 is the start of a multi-year run, and justifies 47 times earnings with it — comforted by a balance sheet and dividend streak that guard the downside. Whoever waits checks three lines in every quarterly report (10-Q): revenue growth (does it stay double-digit?), the largest customer's share (does it keep climbing toward 20 percent?) and any news on renewing the Daikyo licenses before 2027. The next quarterly numbers arrive as soon as July 23, 2026 — an early reading. As long as price and proof sit this far apart, the stock is a watch-list position with clear checkpoints. The decision is yours.
symbol.quality_note
West Pharmaceutical makes the rubber stoppers and seals without which hardly any injectable drug reaches the market — the weight-loss pens run on components from Exton, Pennsylvania, too. Our in-house stock scanner ranks the stock number 4 among dividend aristocrats (U.S. selection, as of July 18, 2026): the quarterly dividend has risen for 33 consecutive years. We read the annual reports (10-K), the quarterly report (10-Q) as of March 31, 2026, and the dividend announcements back to 2013: a payout ratio of just 13 percent, an unnamed customer worth 15.8 percent of revenue, key licenses expiring in 2027 — and a share price at 47 times earnings. Not investment advice — just the question of whether a noble title is an investment case.
Read the analysis
Stock Watch
This analysis is as of July 18, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at WST since then.
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Appears in These Scanners
This stock currently matches 22 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
Only genuine hits from verified scanners count; pure ranking metrics (P/E, P/S, and similar, which just sort the whole universe) don't count as a hit. View all scanners
Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 341.00 $ — 82% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
NeutralGeprüft am 18.07.2026 gegen den Geschäftsbericht (10-K) 2025 (eingereicht 17.02.2026), den 10-K 2024 (18.02.2025) und die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q, zuletzt zum 31.03.2026): In keinem der sechs ausgewerteten SEC-Filings von West Pharmaceutical findet sich auch nur eine Erwähnung von „artificial intelligence“, „machine learning“, „generative“, „LLM“ oder „AI“ — der Volltext-Scan (inklusive Schreibvarianten) liefert null Treffer. Das Geschäft (Elastomer-Stopfen, Dichtungen, Injektionssysteme für injizierbare Medikamente) wird in den Berichten ohne jeden KI-Bezug beschrieben; weder KI-Umsatzquelle noch operativer KI-Einsatz noch ein konkretes KI-Geschäftsrisiko fürs eigene Modell sind dokumentiert. Ergänzend gesichtet: Die Proxy-Erklärung (DEF 14A, 12.03.2026) erwähnt „artificial intelligence“ nur als Themenpunkt der überarbeiteten Verhaltenskodizes (Code of Conduct) — Governance-Boilerplate ohne Geschäftsmodell-Bezug, nach dem Kriterienkatalog kein Beleg. Dokumentierter Negativ-Befund → neutral.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
Filings Reviewed: 10-Q 2026-04-23 · 10-Q 2025-10-23 · 10-Q 2025-07-24 · 10-Q 2025-04-24 · 10-K 2026-02-17 · 10-K 2025-02-18
Rated on July 18, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 18.7% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Strong Sell
- Analyst Ratings
- 13
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Estimates by Fiscal Year
| Fiscal Year | EPS Estimate ($) | EPS Range ($) | Revenue Estimate ($M) | Expected Growth | Analysts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/31/2026 | 8.96 | 8.83 – 9.05 | 3,375 | 22.9% | 16 |
| 12/31/2027 | 9.96 | 9.71 – 10.67 | 3,587 | 11.2% | 16 |
Average of the analyst estimates for the coming fiscal years. The range shows how far the most optimistic and the most cautious estimate sit apart — the wider it is, the less certain the expectation.
Next Reporting Date
- Expected Earnings per Share
- 2.18 $
Expected date of the next quarterly or annual figures. Dates do shift occasionally — only the invitation issued by the company is binding.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
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· Total · per year
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The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 1.77 | -3.40 | 749 | 2.20 | 17.40 | 190 | 85 |
| 2025: Q1 | 1.23 | -20.70 | 698 | 0.40 | 12.90 | 129 | 58 |
| 2025: Q2 | 1.81 | 19.90 | 766 | 9.10 | 17.20 | 177 | 102 |
| 2025: Q3 | 1.93 | 3.90 | 804 | 7.70 | 17.40 | 197 | 134 |
| 2025: Q4 | 1.82 | 2.90 | 805 | 7.50 | 16.40 | 251 | 175 |
| 2026: Q1 | 1.92 | 55.80 | 845 | 21.00 | 16.40 | 90 | 47 |
| 2026: Q2 | 2.15 | 18.80 | 872 | 13.80 | 17.70 | 124 | 81 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Annual Figures
| Fiscal Year | Revenue ($M) | EBIT ($M) | Net Income ($M) | EPS ($) | Operating Cash Flow ($M) | Equity ($M) | Total Assets ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 1,509 | 197 | 144 | 1.91 | 219 | 1,118 | 1,717 |
| 2017 | 1,599 | 229 | 151 | 1.99 | 263 | 1,666 | 1,863 |
| 2018 | 1,718 | 255 | 207 | 2.74 | 289 | 1,396 | 1,592 |
| 2019 | 1,844 | 297 | 242 | 3.21 | 367 | 1,573 | 2,341 |
| 2020 | 2,147 | 419 | 346 | 4.57 | 473 | 1,855 | 2,794 |
| 2021 | 2,831 | 759 | 662 | 8.67 | 584 | 2,335 | 3,314 |
| 2022 | 2,886 | 764 | 586 | 7.73 | 724 | 2,685 | 3,617 |
| 2023 | 2,951 | 711 | 593 | 7.88 | 777 | 2,881 | 3,830 |
| 2024 | 2,893 | 595 | 493 | 6.69 | 653 | 2,682 | 3,643 |
| 2025 | 3,074 | 617 | 494 | 6.79 | 755 | 3,176 | 4,270 |
Fiscal years from the audited annual reports, oldest first. EBIT is the operating profit before interest and taxes; total assets are everything the company owns.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
Consumables with a regulatory moat: elastomer components are baked into customers' drug approvals, and every supplier switch costs data and regulator visits — a tollbooth of injectable medicine with $3,074.1 million in 2025 revenue and a 16 percent net margin (annual report 10-K 2025).
33 consecutive increases (SEC-documented chain: 21st increase 2013, 28th increase 2020, $0.22 per quarter since Q4 2025) at only about 13 percent payout — the streak is exceptionally well covered; the roughly 0.3 percent yield, however, makes the stock no income play (data as of mid-July 2026).
$791.3 million in cash (12/31/2025), equity ratio around 73 percent, net interest paid $0.3 million; buybacks of $1.43 billion since early 2023, a new $1.0 billion program since February 2026, Q1 2026 purchases at ~$244 per share (10-K 2025, 10-Q 03/31/2026).
A strong comeback in Q1 2026 (+21.0 percent revenue, diluted EPS $1.92 after $1.23), driven by high-value components and GLP-1 self-injection systems — but only one quarter after two hangover years: 2025 net income ($493.7 million) still sat below 2023 ($593.4 million), and customer inventory cycles left their mark in 2024.
The largest (unnamed) customer jumped from 12.3 to 15.8 percent of revenue within a year ($485.9 million), the top ten account for 47.6 percent; at the same time the Daikyo licenses for FluroTec, B2 and Crystal Zenith expire in 2027, and the risk factors name oral GLP-1s as a concrete threat to the injection business (10-K 2025).
Roughly 47 times trailing earnings, 7.5 times revenue and a good 50 times free cash flow (data as of mid-July 2026) — the multiple of a structural growth stock, paid after a single quarter of renewed acceleration; the non-affiliate market value stood at $15.7 billion as recently as 06/30/2025 per the 10-K.
West Pharmaceutical is the rare case in which the noble title is accurate and can still mislead: 33 SEC-documented consecutive dividend increases, a fortress balance sheet and a tollbooth position in injectable medicine — but a yield around 0.3 percent, a share price at 47 times earnings, and a growth story that hangs on the weight-loss pen, one 15.8 percent customer and Daikyo licenses expiring in 2027. Whoever buys here is not buying a dividend stock but a richly priced quality-growth bet. Not investment advice.
- WST entered the research list as rank 4 of the in-house dividend-aristocrats scanner (U.S. selection, as of July 18, 2026); 19 further scanners flagged it at the same time — from quality growth and the Buffett criteria to momentum signals (Stage 2, Power Trend).
- The 33-year streak is reconstructed from SEC sources: 8-K press releases of 08/01/2013 (21st increase) and 10/28/2020 (28th increase) plus the gaplessly rising, split-adjusted XBRL dividend series 2011–2025 ($0.35 → $0.86). Scanner metrics (P/E, P/S, Piotroski, Altman-Z) use trailing twelve-month figures.
- Market-value figure (~$24 billion) from the feed as of mid-July 2026, sanity-checked against 72,021,491 shares outstanding per the annual report 10-K 2025 (as of 01/29/2026); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument.
About the Company
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. entwickelt, fertigt und verkauft Behälter- und Verabreichungssysteme für injizierbare Arzneimittel und Gesundheitsprodukte in Nord- und Südamerika, Europa, dem Nahen Osten, Afrika und dem asiatisch-pazifischen Raum.
| Employees | 10,800 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Exton, PA |
| Address | 530 Herman O. West Drive, 19341-1147 Exton, United States |
| Phone | 610 594 2900 |
| Website | westpharma.com |
| IPO Date | 13. Jan 1978 |
| ISIN | US9553061055 |
| Stock Split | 2:1 on 09/27/2013 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| Eric Mark Green | Non-Independent Chair of the Board, President & CEO | 1970 |
| Robert W. McMahon C.M.A. | Senior VP & CFO | 1969 |
| Annette F. Favorite | Chief HR Officer & Senior VP | 1965 |
| Shane A. Campbell | SVP & Chief Proprietary Segment Officer | 1981 |
| Chad R. Winters | VP of Finance & Chief Accounting Officer | 1979 |
| Devesh Mathur | Senior VP & CTO | – |
| John P. Sweeney C.F.A. | Vice President of Investor Relations | – |
| Norman D. Finch Jr. | Senior VP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary | 1965 |
| Michele Polinsky | Vice President of Global Communications | – |
| Rudy J. Poussot | Senior Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development | 1970 |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.