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Bio-Rad Laboratories bets on Digital PCR, margins and smarter M&A growth. September 25, 2026 Key points. * Digital PCR is Bio-Rad's main growth opportunity: The company is expanding its droplet-based PCR portfolio through the Stilla acquisition, which has delivered double-digit growth, while pursuing longer-term diagnostic applications. * Demand remains uneven across life-science markets: Later-stage biopharma and Asia-Pacific markets excluding China are improving, but early-stage biotech, cell and gene therapy, academic funding and European research spending remain pressured. * Bio-Rad is tightening its strategy to improve profitability: Management is shifting M&A toward commercially established companies with differentiated technology and synergies, while restructuring operations to target a mid-teens operating margin within the next few years. * Interested in Bio-Rad Laboratories? Here are five stocks we like better. Bio-Rad Laboratories NYSE: BIO is pursuing a multi-year effort to improve growth, expand margins and strengthen free cash flow, with management emphasizing portfolio focus, operating discipline and a more selective approach to acquisitions. Speaking at a Bernstein conference, Chief Financial Officer Roop Lakkaraju said the company's relatively new executive team has been assessing its businesses from the ground up, including where Bio-Rad has a competitive advantage and where it may need to change its technology or portfolio. "We are operators," Lakkaraju said, describing a leadership group that has experience evolving businesses in difficult markets. The company is focused on identifying markets where it has a "right to win," using M&A as a potential supplement to growth, and improving margins and cash generation. Digital PCR remains a central growth area. Lakkaraju highlighted Bio-Rad's Droplet Digital PCR business as a key opportunity. Digital PCR enables absolute quantitation and is particularly applicable to rare-event detection, he said, citing oncology, minimal residual disease and wastewater management as examples. Bio-Rad's droplet-based approach, assay library of more than 400,000 assays and more than 12,000 technical publications using its digital PCR technology support its market position, according to Lakkaraju. He said next-generation sequencing and PCR are generally complementary rather than directly substitutive technologies. Sequencing can identify what researchers are looking at, while PCR can be used for absolute or approximate quantitation, he said. Research labs commonly use multiple technologies, including real-time PCR, qPCR, digital PCR and sequencing, depending on the application. The company's acquisition of Stilla Technologies, which closed June 30 of the prior year, broadened its digital PCR lineup to include entry-level instruments. Lakkaraju said Bio-Rad had previously been concentrated in mid- to high-end applications and lacked an entry-level product as instrument price points declined. Stilla's QX700 products have supported double-digit growth over the past three quarters, ranging from low double-digit growth to more than 20%, Lakkaraju said. He also described the products' modular architecture as a potential source of future research-and-development leverage. Discover more Trade Financial Derivatives Explore Top Audiobooks Bio-Rad currently uses partnerships with companies including Biodesix, Gencove and Insight Molecular to apply its digital PCR technology in diagnostic settings. Lakkaraju said the company sees a longer-term opportunity to expand digital PCR further into diagnostics. Uneven research markets continue to affect demand. Lakkaraju said market conditions remain challenging across life-science tools and diagnostics. Bio-Rad has historically had meaningful exposure to academic and government customers as well as early-stage biopharma companies, including those involved in cell and gene therapy. While later-stage and commercial-stage biotechnology customers have shown improvement, early-stage biotech spending has remained weaker, he said. Funding and activity in cell and gene therapy are below prior levels, according to Lakkaraju. The company is evaluating ways to participate more in later-stage biopharma activity, though replacing technology already used in clinical programs can be difficult. Bio-Rad may instead seek opportunities in new customer programs, he said. In academic and government markets, Lakkaraju said instrument sales of QX700 products suggest customers are continuing to invest in research despite a soft environment. However, customer sentiment remains cautious, particularly in the U.S., amid uncertainty about whether expected funding will be received. He said changes in how the National Institutes of Health deploys funding, including a greater emphasis on multi-year grants, have created uncertainty for research institutions. The White House was seeking further reductions to the 2026 NIH budget, while Congress was pushing for at least flat funding, according to Lakkaraju. Elsewhere, he said funding conditions in Europe have deteriorated as governments direct spending toward areas such as defense and energy. Asia-Pacific markets excluding China have been positive for Bio-Rad, while conditions in China remain uncertain. China represents a mid-single-digit percentage of Bio-Rad revenue and is more weighted toward diagnostics than tools, he said. M&A strategy shifts toward commercially established assets. Lakkaraju acknowledged that some earlier acquisitions, including Dropworks and Curiosity Diagnostics, resulted in impairments. He said Bio-Rad had spent much of the prior eight to 10 years pursuing early-stage technology companies, which required the company to develop, productize and commercialize the acquired technology. The company has since shifted its approach toward businesses with products already in the market, existing revenue and established market positions. Bio-Rad is not seeking transformative acquisitions, Lakkaraju said, but is targeting companies in the roughly $100 million to $500 million revenue range across tools or diagnostics. Acquisitions must provide differentiated technology and potential synergies in areas such as R&D, commercial infrastructure or manufacturing, rather than simply add revenue, he said. Lakkaraju also addressed Bio-Rad's stake in Sartorius, calling it a monetizable asset but saying Bio-Rad is not interested in, nor able to, acquire Sartorius. He said Bio-Rad's priority is improving its own operations, growth and cash flow. Restructuring and margin goals. Bio-Rad announced restructurings in February 2025 and the second quarter of 2026. Lakkaraju said the actions were part of a methodical effort to align the company's cost structure with its strategy, rather than restructurings undertaken solely for cost reduction. He said customer focus remains central to the company's plans, while management is also working to retain employee engagement through communication and direct engagement with teams worldwide. Looking ahead, Lakkaraju said Bio-Rad aims to reach a mid-teens operating margin within the next few years. He characterized that target as a point along a broader journey toward peer-level operating margins, supported by more consistent top-line growth. About Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO). Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc is a life science research and clinical diagnostics company headquartered in Hercules, California. Founded in 1952 by David and Alice Schwartz, the company develops, manufactures and markets products used by academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare and government customers. Its Life Science segment provides instruments, reagents, consumables and software for applications including genomics, digital PCR, gene expression analysis, protein purification, cell biology and biopharmaceutical quality control. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. Before you consider Bio-Rad Laboratories, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. 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Bio-Rad expands Foresight Pro prepacked chromatography Columns with Nuvia ion exchange and mixed-mode resins for biomanufacturing. Extended Range of Process-Scale Columns Prepacked with CEX, AEX, CEX-HIC, and AEX-HIC Chromatography Resins Provides an Effective Solution for Purification of Biomolecules in Downstream Processing HERCULES, Calif. - September 01, 2026 - Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: BIO and BIO.B), a global leader in life science research and clinical diagnostics products, today announced the launch of prepacked process-scale Foresight(TM) Pro chromatography columns packed with Bio-Rad's scalable Nuvia(TM) chromatography resins, for downstream process-scale chromatography applications throughout the various stages in biological drug development and manufacturing. The extended range includes columns packed with anion exchangers (AEX) Nuvia Q Media and Nuvia HP-Q Media, cation exchanger (CEX) Nuvia HR-S Media, and mixed-mode (MM) resins Nuvia cPrime Media, a CEX-hydrophobic interaction chromatography (CEX-HIC) resin, and Nuvia aPrime 4A Media, an AEX-HIC chromatography resin. These options expand the existing family of Foresight Pro columns packed with CHT(TM) Ceramic Hydroxyapatite Media Type I, Type II, and XT, which have been incorporated into various regulatory-approved processes worldwide. Columns prepacked with Nuvia resins are now available with internal diameters (ID) of 5 to 13 cm and bed heights of 10 and 20 cm. Columns with IDs of 20 to 45 cm are also in development with anticipated availability in early 2027. Nuvia chromatography resins use Bio-Rad's Nuvia bead technology, featuring a polyacrylamide (acrylamide polymer) base bead suitable for laboratory-scale purification, process development, pilot-scale production, and commercial biomanufacturing applications. Bio-Rad's Nuvia resins are designed to have minimal non-specific binding reactions, due to the hydrophilic nature of the bead polymer, and maintain a constant dynamic binding capacity over a wide range of flow rates. The Nuvia bead allows for fast mass transfer and is chemically and mechanically stable over a wide range of conditions. All Bio-Rad Foresight Pro Columns are manufactured in a controlled ISO Class 7 cleanroom, providing good manufacturing practice (GMP) ready columns. The prepacked columns' standardized design and format can provide a more cost-effective and flexible solution than customer-packed columns, and columns are available in a range of diameters and bed volumes. "The new Nuvia prepacked Foresight Pro chromatography columns build on the strong market response to our original CHT Ceramic Hydroxyapatite Media columns, which launched in 2022," said Diab Elmashni, Director, Process Chromatography Business at Bio-Rad Laboratories. "Customers asked us for column options built around different resins, and this line is our response. What sets these columns apart is that each one is packed using media from a single production lot, instead of blending multiple resin batches together during packing. That single-lot approach is what makes our Foresight Pro Columns a genuinely unique, single-source offering, providing biopharma customers with superior technical, application, and product support." BIO-RAD, NUVIA, CHT, and FORESIGHT are trademarks of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. in certain jurisdictions. The Foresight Pro Column hardware design is covered by U.S. Patent Number 11,841,350 and foreign counterparts. Nuvia aPrime 4A Media is covered by U.S. Patent Numbers 9,669,402 and 10,682,640, and foreign counterparts. Nuvia cPrime Media is covered by U.S. Patent Numbers 9,309,282, 10,792,654, and 11,590,486, and foreign counterparts.