Bio-Rad makes the picks-and-shovels of life science — the reagents, instruments and diagnostics that labs use to study proteins and DNA and that hospitals use to type blood and monitor disease. Two roughly equal engines drive it: a Clinical Diagnostics business (~60% of ~$2.6B sales) and a Life Science tools business (~40%, led by its dominant droplet-digital-PCR franchise). But its real financial story sits off to the side: a ~38% stake in German bioprocessing giant Sartorius, worth more than $5B — larger than Bio-Rad's own operating business, and the reason its earnings swing wildly and activist Elliott is now circling.
What Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. really sells
Bio-Rad makes the picks-and-shovels of life science — the reagents, instruments and diagnostics that labs use to study proteins and DNA and that hospitals use to type blood and monitor disease. Two roughly equal engines drive it: a Clinical Diagnostics business (~60% of ~$2.6B sales) and a Life Science tools business (~40%, led by its dominant droplet-digital-PCR franchise). But its real financial story sits off to the side: a ~38% stake in German bioprocessing giant Sartorius, worth more than $5B — larger than Bio-Rad's own operating business, and the reason its earnings swing wildly and activist Elliott is now circling.