Zacks senior medical technology analyst Gregory Aurand, CFA is reiterating his Hold recommendation on shares of LabCorp (LH).  We looked into his latest report to get a deeper analysis:

'LabCorp fundamentals remain solid and managed care pressures from contract renewals should abate. We are revising our top-line and bottom-line estimates higher on expected better test volume growth, a slight improvement in cost of service (better pricing), and a lower share count in 2008.

'At roughly 17x our 2008 $4.73 EPS estimate, our target moves down slightly to $80.00. We believe the company faces moderate but continued difficulty on overall pricing. We estimate 1-3% overall pricing increases in 2007, as we believe the UNH contract was won largely on price, and discounts given to UNH will affect overall pricing.

'As another part of the strategic plan to increase reimbursements and communicate testing benefits to managed care organizations, the company is focusing on expanding genomic/esoteric testing and reimbursement. About 35% of total company testing volumes now come from genomic/esoteric/cancer categories as compared to 23% of revenues in 2002.'