Veeva Systems soared 20% on Thursday to close at $294.54, marking its strongest single-day percentage gain ever after the life sciences cloud software company reported fiscal second-quarter 2027 results that beat analyst expectations across key metrics. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Veeva is one of the largest software vendors focused exclusively on life sciences, selling cloud applications that pharmaceutical and biotech companies use to run clinical trials, manage regulatory submissions and quality processes, and coordinate sales and marketing to physicians. The company's fiscal year ends January 31.

Quarterly revenue came in at $928 million, up 18% year over year and ahead of the Street’s $905 million estimate. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.35, above analyst forecasts of $2.22.

Veeva raised its full-year FY2027 revenue outlook to $3.68 billion-$3.69 billion, compared with the prior Street consensus of about $3.65 billion. The company also increased its adjusted EPS forecast to $9.21 from $9.05.

Subscription revenue, Veeva’s key operating metric, rose 16% year over year to $766.8 million, roughly 83% of total revenue. The company said non-GAAP operating margins remained above 44%.

Chief Executive Peter Gassner said that “Vault CRM had its best quarter ever and Veeva Falcon accelerated rapidly,” adding that artificial intelligence is “opening up the next big chapter for Veeva and life sciences.” Veeva Falcon is the company’s artificial intelligence agent product for commercial teams.

During the quarter, Eli Lilly and Biogen became the latest top-20 pharmaceutical companies to adopt Vault CRM for their operations. That brought the total number of top-20 biopharma customers using the platform to 12. Vault CRM runs on Veeva’s own technology platform and is the successor to the original Veeva CRM, which was built on Salesforce’s software; Veeva announced in 2019 that it would move its CRM business onto its own platform, and adoption by the biggest drugmakers has since become a closely watched measure of that transition.

Following the results, nearly 20 analyst firms raised their price targets on the stock.

Wall Street response

Barclays analyst Saket Kalia raised his target to $315 from $275 and kept an Overweight rating, citing subscription revenue acceleration as evidence of sustainable growth.

Piper Sandler initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and a $295 price target.

Guggenheim lifted its target to $310 from $276 and maintained a Buy rating, calling Veeva “indispensable for its customers.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Craig Hettenbach increased his target to $275 from $215 and pointed to the company’s investor day on November 5 as the next major catalyst, describing it as “a referendum on the company’s AI strategy.”

Canaccord also raised its target, moving to $260 from $220 while keeping a Hold rating. The firm said the quarter was among the “cleanest” it had seen in recent memory.

Broader market backdrop

Veeva’s surge came amid strength in the technology sector. Salesforce, which competes with Veeva in life sciences customer relationship software, rose more than 20% in the same session after topping second-quarter estimates and expanding its collaboration with Anthropic. ServiceNow and Datadog also posted strong gains.

Nvidia’s earnings report earlier in the week appeared to help revive investor interest in technology and software stocks. On Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.5%.

Veeva was the second-best performer in the S&P 500 during the session, trailing only Salesforce. The stock traded at $264 in premarket hours, well above its opening price of $239.87, before extending its gains during regular trading.

Veeva’s next major corporate event is its annual investor day on November 5, where executives are expected to discuss the company’s artificial intelligence roadmap.