IQVIA revenue rose 8.7% to $4.37B with both segments widening margins and a record $3.15B of R&D bookings (1.22x book-to-bill), but higher restructuring, stock pay, interest and tax left GAAP EPS at $1.53 vs $1.54; full-year guidance raised.
Revenue
$4.4B
+8.7% YoY
Net income
$256M
-3.8% YoY
Diluted EPS
$1.53
-0.6% YoY
Operating margin
11.6%
Overview
IQVIA runs two businesses. Research & Development Solutions (R&DS) is a CRO, a contract research organization: drug and biotech companies pay it to run their clinical trials. Commercial Solutions sells healthcare data, analytics, software and outsourced sales and patient-support services to the same drug companies once their products are on the market.
Second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 8.7% to $4,368 million (8.5% at constant currency, meaning with last year's exchange rates applied, so currency moves added only about 0.2 points). Both segments grew by about the same amount and both widened their profit margins. But GAAP net income fell 3.8% to $256 million and diluted EPS slipped to $1.53 from $1.54. The gap comes from costs that sit outside the segments: restructuring, stock-based pay, amortization, interest, and a higher tax rate. On IQVIA's adjusted basis, which strips those items out, EPS rose 12.1% to $3.15.
The other headline is demand. R&DS signed a record $3.15 billion of net new business in the quarter, up 19% year over year, and management raised full-year guidance for revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS.
A note on comparisons: from January 1, 2026 IQVIA reports two segments instead of three. The old Contract Sales & Medical Solutions segment was folded into Technology & Analytics Solutions, which was renamed Commercial Solutions. Real-World Late Phase studies moved from that segment into R&DS. The 2025 segment figures below are IQVIA's restated ("recast") versions on the new basis.
Key metrics
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Revenue
$4,368M
$4,017M
+8.7% (+8.5% constant currency)
Income from operations
Read 0 community reports on IQVIA, or write your own.Write a report
Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. Segment profit is before depreciation, amortization, restructuring and corporate costs, so it is higher than operating income. Adjusted figures and bookings come from IQVIA's earnings release (8-K Exhibit 99.1, July 28, 2026); everything else from the 10-Q.
Why operating income stayed flat while the segments grew
Added together, the two segments' profit rose $93 million, from $852 million to $945 million. None of that reached income from operations, which was $506 million in both years. Three lines outside the segments absorbed it:
Item outside the segments
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
Change
General corporate and unallocated expenses
$84M
$38M
+$46M
Restructuring costs
$63M
$32M
+$31M
Depreciation and amortization
$292M
$276M
+$16M
Corporate costs: the 10-Q says these are mainly stock-based compensation plus integration and acquisition expenses. Stock-based compensation was $95 million, against $60 million a year earlier.
Restructuring: the 10-Q attributes it to "ongoing efforts to streamline our global operations and reduce overcapacity... and integrate acquisitions," and expects these actions to continue "throughout 2026 and into 2027." That makes it a recurring cost for now, not a one-off.
Depreciation and amortization: higher amortization of capitalized software and of intangibles from 2025–2026 acquisitions.
Below operating income, costs rose further. Interest expense grew to $197 million from $182 million because of higher debt balances, and the effective tax rate rose to 19.9% from 17.3% on a change in the geographic mix of earnings. A $17 million profit from equity-method affiliates (companies IQVIA part-owns), against a $1 million loss last year, cushioned the decline.
Adjusted EPS removes stock-based pay, restructuring, acquisition amortization and similar items. That is why it rose 12.1% while GAAP EPS fell. A share count about 3.4% lower (167.3 million diluted shares vs 173.2 million, after buybacks) also helped both per-share figures.
Research & Development Solutions: the clinical-trials business
R&DS revenue rose 8.8% to $2,575 million, or 8.6% at constant currency. The 10-Q attributes the growth to "volume-related increases in clinical services and lab testing." Segment profit grew faster, up 11.2% to $526 million, so segment margin widened to 20.4% from 20.0%.
Pass-through costs are growing faster than IQVIA's own work. Part of a CRO's revenue is "reimbursed expenses": mainly payments to the doctors and hospitals who run trial sites, plus monitor travel. IQVIA passes these on to the client at little or no margin, so they add to revenue without adding much profit. The earnings release says that excluding reimbursed expenses, R&DS revenue grew 6.7%, below the 8.8% headline. So pass-through revenue grew faster than IQVIA's own service revenue this quarter. The CEO described R&DS organic growth (excluding acquisitions) as 7%.
By region, R&DS's Europe and Africa revenue rose to $722 million from $601 million, about +20%, and the 10-Q names that region as the main source of growth. Asia-Pacific grew to $709 million from $655 million, while the Americas grew only slightly, to $1,144 million from $1,110 million.
Bookings and backlog: the forward-looking numbers.
Net new bookings are the value of new contracts signed in the period, minus cancellations. They were $3.15 billion, up 19%, and management called this a record. Bookings over the last twelve months were $11.3 billion, up 13%.
Book-to-bill divides bookings by revenue for the same period. At 1.22x, IQVIA signed $1.22 of new work for every $1.00 it recognized as revenue, so the order book is growing rather than being run down.
Contracted backlog is signed work not yet performed. It was $34.2 billion on June 30, up from a recast $34.0 billion at year-end. IQVIA expects about $9.2 billion of it to become revenue over the next twelve months, 7.5% more than the equivalent figure a year earlier.
Backlog grew only $0.2 billion in six months even though the quarter's book-to-bill was 1.22x. The filing does not break down the gap, which could come from first-quarter bookings, cancellations or currency. The next-twelve-months conversion figure (+7.5%) is the better guide to near-term R&DS revenue.
Commercial Solutions: data, analytics and outsourced commercial services
Commercial Solutions revenue rose 8.6% to $1,793 million (8.4% at constant currency). Segment profit rose 10.6% to $419 million, lifting segment margin to 23.4% from 23.0%. The 10-Q says the growth came mainly from patient solutions (formerly part of real-world solutions) and, to a lesser extent, commercial engagement services (the former contract sales and medical business). The earnings release adds high-single-digit organic growth in analytics and consulting. Growth was mainly in the Americas ($895 million vs $825 million), and Europe and Africa also rose ($687 million vs $640 million).
Segment costs of revenue rose 8.6%, in line with revenue. The 10-Q lists reimbursed expenses, pay, and data-acquisition costs as the drivers. SG&A (selling, general and administrative costs) rose only 5.2%, and that slower overhead growth is where the margin gain came from.
For the first half of the year, segment growth was 10.1% reported but 8.5% at constant currency, so the six-month figures include roughly 1.6 points of currency benefit. The second quarter's growth depended much less on currency.
Cash, debt and buybacks
Cash flow: operating cash flow was $558 million, up 26.0%. After $198 million of capital spending, free cash flow was $360 million, up 23.3%.
Buybacks: IQVIA repurchased $398 million of stock in the quarter and $950 million in the first half. In May the board added $2.0 billion to the buyback authorization, leaving $2,819 million available at June 30.
Debt: debt was $15,999 million against $1,909 million of cash, for net debt of $14,090 million. That is 3.59x trailing-twelve-month Adjusted EBITDA, which is high leverage. In June IQVIA issued €950 million of 4.625% notes due 2033 and used the proceeds to repay a 364-day term loan (itself taken out in March to retire €550 million of 1.750% notes) and part of its revolving credit line. Swapping 1.75% debt for 4.625% debt is one reason interest expense is rising.
Guidance and outlook
IQVIA raised its full-year 2026 guidance (earnings release, July 28, 2026):
FY2026 guidance
New range
Revenue
$17,275M – $17,475M
Adjusted EBITDA
$4,000M – $4,050M
Adjusted diluted EPS
$12.80 – $13.00
The revenue midpoint now implies 6.5% growth, up from 5.8%. Management attributes the change to about 100 basis points (1.0 point) of stronger organic growth and about 50 basis points more from acquisitions, partly offset by about 80 basis points less currency benefit. The guidance now assumes about 2.0 points of growth from acquisitions and 0.2 points from currency. By our arithmetic, that leaves full-year organic growth in the low-to-mid 4% range. First-half constant-currency growth was already 7.3%, and part of that also came from acquisitions, so the guidance implies a second half growing more slowly than the first. That is either conservative or a sign that growth is expected to ease.
Takeaway: Both of IQVIA's operating businesses grew revenue about 9% and profit about 11%, and R&DS signed a record $3.15 billion of new work (1.22x book-to-bill). Almost none of that reached GAAP earnings, because rising restructuring charges, stock-based pay, interest costs and a higher tax rate absorbed the segment gains. The business is doing better than GAAP EPS shows, but the adjusted figures leave out costs that recur every quarter.
What to watch in Q3: whether R&DS growth excluding pass-through costs moves closer to the headline rate (6.7% vs 8.8% this quarter), whether bookings stay above revenue after a record quarter, and whether restructuring charges start to fall as management's "into 2027" timeline progresses. The filings give no GAAP EPS guidance, so the gap between adjusted and GAAP results is likely to continue.