Celebrations may be in order for OmniAb, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABI) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects. The market may be pricing in some blue sky too, with the share price gaining 69% to US$3.38 in the last 7 days. It will be interesting to see if today's upgrade is enough to propel the stock even higher.

Following the latest upgrade, the current consensus, from the seven analysts covering OmniAb, is for revenues of US$35m in 2026, which would reflect a chunky 9.2% reduction in OmniAb's sales over the past 12 months. Per-share losses are expected to see a sharp uptick, reaching US$0.36. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$31m and US$0.41 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. One more thing stood out to us about these estimates, and it's the idea that OmniAb's decline is expected to accelerate, with revenues forecast to fall at an annualised rate of 17% to the end of 2026. This tops off a historical decline of 14% a year over the past five years. Compare this against analyst estimates for companies in the broader industry, which suggest that revenues (in aggregate) are expected to grow 6.9% annually. So while a broad number of companies are forecast to grow, unfortunately OmniAb is expected to see its sales affected worse than other companies in the industry.

The Bottom Line

The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting OmniAb is moving incrementally towards profitability. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. The clear improvement in sentiment should be enough to get most shareholders feeling more optimistic about OmniAb's future.

Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have estimates - from multiple OmniAb analysts - going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks with high insider ownership.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.