Top Execs from Agilent, Waters, and Bruker Take the Stage at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
The 43rd Annual Healthcare J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference kicked off in San Francisco, California earlier this week. Notable executives from analytical science companies were invited to speak during the event, including executives from Agilent, Waters, and Bruker.
August 12, 2019 Santa Clara / CA / USA - Agilent Technologies sign at their HQ in Silicon Valley; Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American public research, development and manufacturing company | Image Credit: © Sundry Photography - stock.adobe.com
Udit Batra, Waters President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), spoke during a fireside chat on the conference on Monday, January 13 (2). The company highlighted its contributions to regulated markets, such as pharmaceuticals, food and the environment, and renewable energy materials. Waters plans to invest $12 billion into the total addressable market with 4–6% long-term market growth estimates, Batra outlined (3).
“We spend a lot of time trying to understand the unmet needs of our customers and then spend roughly 10% of our product sales converting complex instruments into simplified instrument systems,” Batra said (4). Waters currently has more than 170,000 instruments installed which get replaced every 7–10 years. The company also employs more than 2000 service engineers to help with instrument service and issues.
“These are folks with advanced degrees, often people who have designed these instruments,” Batra added (4).
Batra also spoke about the company’s transformation plan. Launched in 2020, the plan focuses on three main goals: regaining commercial momentum, revitalizing innovation, and entering faster growth adjacencies. By focusing on a few key areas including instrument replacement, service plan attachment, e-commerce adoption, contract organizations, and innovation launches, the company has been able to continue to grow its base of users.
Batra also highlighted the company’s work in developing instruments that provide more accurate separations. For example, the company’s liquid chromatography (LC) technology reduces common user errors up to 40%. The company’s mass spectrometry (MS) technology now has 15 times better sensitivity and is much more compact that prior versions.
Agilent CEO Padraig McDonnell and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Bob McMahon presented at the conference on Tuesday, January 14 (5). Agilent currently serves more than 285,000 laboratories in 110 countries (6) spanning industries including pharma and biopharma, academia, forensic science, food, and more. This and other efforts, according to McDonnell, has led to over 90% customer satisfaction and strong free cash flow conversion at the company.
McDonell also highlighted the company’s recent reorganization, dividing into Life Sciences & Diagnostics Group (LDG), an Applied Markets Group (AMG), and the Agilent CrossLab Group, which will focus on providing consumables and services while also working on software and laboratory automation. The company has seen a growth in sales of non-instrument products, McDonnell said. The company’s non-instrument to instrument sale ratio has increased from 54:46 in 2014 to a 64:36 ratio, with $1.6 billion in core service revenue being generated from FY20–24 and $0.9 billion in core consumable revenue in the same period. Moving forward, the executives said that Agilent is focused on growth acceleration, customer-centricity, and productivity.
Frank Laukien, Chairman and CEO of Bruker Corporation, also spoke at the conference on January 13 (7). Laukien highlighted the company’s 70% cumulative revenue growth in the last four years (now making their value over $3.3 billion in revenue). Bruker’s leadership, he said, pushes for advancements in MS, multiomics, and single-cell biology, and is also exploring new initiatives to enhance growth and margin expansion. Moving forward, the company plans to invest (11%) into research and development (R&D). The company has contributed to work across fields like laboratory automation and spatial biology, while also expanding their reach by acquiring companies like Phenomenex, NanoString, and Chemspeed Technologies (10–12). Bruker acquired NanoString for $392.6 million in May 2024 and Phenomenex for $108 million in October 2023. Terms of the deal with Chemspeed Technologies, which occurred in January 2024, were not disclosed.
“We have a historical opportunity at an inflection point between the last quarter century of genome biology and the next,” said Laukien. “We are a full-fledged proteomics tools company, not just a mass spec company that has a proteomics application.”
References
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