07.22.21
Rank: #15 (Last year: #17)
$7.40 Billion ($22.28 Billion)
Prior Fiscal: $6.56 Billion
Percentage Change: +12.8%
No. of Employees: 69,000 (total)
Global Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Steven M. Rales, Board Chairman
Rainer M. Blair, President and CEO
Matthew R. McGrew, Exec. VP and CFO
Brian W. Ellis, Sr. VP and General Counsel
William H. King, Sr. VP, Strategic Development
Robert S. Lutz, Sr. VP and Chief Accounting Officer
Daniel A. Raskas, Sr. VP, Corporate Development
Jose-Carlos Guitierrez-Ramos, Sr. VP and Chief Scientific Officer
Julie Sawyer Montgomery, President,
Beckman Coulter Diagnostics
Matt Turner, President, Ormco
Christophe Duret, President, HemoCue
Markus Lusser, President, Leica Microsystems
Susan Murphy, President, Molecular Devices
Joseph Repp, President, Pall Life Sciences
Joe Fox, President, SCIEX
Patrik Eriksson, President, Nobel Biocare
Mike Field, President, Mammotome
Henrik Schimmel, President, Radiometer
B+C+S
Those letters represent the three main components of entrepreneurial success: Brand, Culture, Strategy.
The ideologically simple formula is more or less a philosophy rather than a hard-and-fast rule. Corporate disciples of this doctrine have been rewarded handsomely for their loyalty, both financially and socially.
While straightforward, the formula will only produce results when all three elements are aligned—a feat that is not so simple to achieve. It requires the right mix of branding, along with corporate cultural awareness, social responsibility, stakeholder value, service standards, an “employee-first” tenet, and core company values.
“I created the formula for myself in business years ago to try and figure out how all these things fit in,” independent business consultant Kenneth C. Bator recalled in a podcast (the theorem is detailed in his 2015 book, “The Formula for Business Success = B+C+S”). “In the 1990s when I was in the corporate world, I would run to a seminar about empowerment, then I would pick up a book about re-engineering, and maybe read an article on Six Sigma, and I always thought that in and of itself, this is a great concept, but how do we align and put all these things together? What eventually came to my head was everything seemed to fall into one of three buckets—either branding, culture, or strategy.”
Bator devotes a considerable portion of his book to branding, noting that a company’s mission statement is a vital ingredient within the “B” part of the formula.
Mission statements (sometimes referred to as credos) are relatively common in the business world, as they create a clear identity for companies, and help convey its values and purpose to both employees and the public. Mission statements also provide an ideal vision for an organization and directs its future growth.
Obviously, not all mission statements are created equal. Some are longer than others, some are more explicit than others, and some are more abstract. InVisionapp, for example, is guided by phrases: “Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.” Starbucks’ vision, on the other hand, is more straightforward: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”
Most mission statements, however, fall between the two extremes, mixing Starbucks-style clarity with InVisionapp-type ambiguity. Case in point: Ford Motor Company pledges to “go further to make our cars better, our employees happier, and our planet a better place to be.” Similarly, Nike vows to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” and Danaher Corporation is devoted to “Helping Realize Life’s Potential.”
The latter mission was particularly fitting last year as the Fortune 500 science and technology innovator helped the world realize life’s potential through critical COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.
“The COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives and businesses, suddenly and substantially. We had to invent new ways to support each other and serve our customers while safeguarding our associates’ health and safety,” Danaher president and CEO Rainer M. Blair told shareholders at the start of the company’s 2020 annual report. Blair succeeded former president and CEO Thomas P. Joyce Jr. on Sept. 1.
“...unified by our Shared Purpose, Helping Realize Life’s Potential, we have worked hard to navigate these unprecedented times from a position of strength,” he continued. “Since the onset of the pandemic, our team has met the challenges presented and turned them into impactful opportunities to help our customers and the global community.”
Those opportunities benefited Danaher, too. Total sales jumped 24.4 percent last year to $22.3 billion and gross profit swelled 25 percent to $12.5 billion. Net earnings and basic net earnings per share each grew by 50 percent, to $3.64 billion and $4.97, respectively.
Danaher’s annual report attributes the sales growth to overall increased demand for the company’s products and services, as well as an 18 percent boost from the $21.4 billion addition of General Electric Co.’s biopharmaceutical business. Danaher purchased the business to gain a competitive edge in the global bioprocessing market, a sector forecast to grow 17 percent annually over the next five years.
The deal likely will help Danaher become a major competitor in the biopharmaceutical arena, as it now retains the ability to develop and manufacture both equipment and software used in biopharmaceutical research. Upon closing the transaction in March 2020, Danaher renamed the business (Cytiva) and established it as a standalone company within its Life Sciences segment.
And that new company helped significantly improve segment sales. Total Life Sciences revenue skyrocketed 52.2 percent last year to $10.57 billion, partly due to a 30 percent increase in core Cytiva proceeds between March 31 and Dec. 31, 2020, according to Danaher.
“With the addition of Cytiva, we doubled our annual revenue in the highly attractive biopharmaceutical end-market, which now represents more than 50 percent of our Life Sciences platform’s annual revenue,” Blair wrote in the annual report. “Cytiva achieved more than 25 percent core revenue growth and over $4 billion in revenue. We could not be more pleased with Cytiva’s early results...”
Such delight also was justified within the Diagnostic segment, where total sales rose 13 percent to $7.4 billion and operating profit ballooned 35.6 percent to $1.54 billion.
COVID-19 proved to be a double-edged sword for the segment—while it increased demand for molecular diagnostics and acute care instruments and consumables, lockdowns and other virus-induced restrictions reduced the need for clinical lab instruments and consumables.
Higher demand for blood gas instruments and consumables, partially driven by increased COVID-19 hospitalizations, bolstered acute care diagnostic sales last year. Demand was strong throughout the world, according to Danaher.
Conversely, core clinical lab revenue fell due to lower demand, despite the May 2020 launch of Beckman Coulter’s DxH 690T hematology analyzer, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance of the PK7400 Automated Microplate System last July. The clinical lab deficit, however, was somewhat offset by higher molecular diagnostic revenue, which itself was driven by robust growth of infectious disease instruments and consumable products as well as the development of COVID-19 tests by the company’s Beckman Coulter business.
The pandemic-induced tests included:
Beckman Coulter also began working last year on a federally-funded coronavirus-related sepsis detection algorithm and a rapid diagnostic test for pediatric COVID-19 patients.
The company is collaborating with San Francisco-based algorithm software developer Dascena Inc. on the sepsis diagnostic; the solution would combine clinical data from Beckman Coulter’s monocyte distribution width laboratory tests and patient data from electronic health records in a predictive machine learning algorithm to better and more accurately detect sepsis early. The diagnostic seeks to build on Beckman Coulter’s existing Early Sepsis Indicator, which received FDA 510(k) clearance in April 2019.
“Until recently, the majority of sepsis cases have been thought to be caused by bacterial pathogens,” Shamiram R. Feinglass,M.D., chief medical officer at Beckman Coulter, said in prepared remarks last May. “COVID-19 is changing that, and causing a paradigm shift in how we think about sepsis. The aim...is to determine whether MDW, as part of the sepsis prediction algorithm, will be able to aid in the detection of sepsis regardless of whether it is bacterial or viral-induced.”
Beckman Coulter also will build upon its MDW measurement technology to develop a COVID-19 test for children. The company currently is working to create a blood-based biomarker for measuring MDW, or variations in certain white blood cell sizes, which can indicate a systemic infection.
Funding from BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) will help support a clinical trial of the test that eventually will be administered by Beckman Coulter and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the University of Florida.
Further advancing Beckman Coulter’s sepsis diagnostic capabilities last year was the FDA’s late January 510(k) clearance of the Access PCT assay, an in-vitro analytical test that measures the blood’s procalcitonin levels to determine critically ill patients’ risk of developing severe sepsis or septic shock.
The assay integrates procalcitonin testing into routine sepsis workups on core laboratory analyzers as a primary or reflex test programmed through Beckman Coulter’s Remisol Advance middleware, according to the company. Access PCT is available for use on the company’s Access family of immunoassay systems, including the Access 2, UniCel Dxl 600, and UniCel Dxl 800.
Sepsis was not the only diagnostic capability Danaher (through its various standalone businesses) augmented last year.
Higher demand for advanced staining consumables and pathology imaging products prompted Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based Leica Biosystems Inc. to enhance its Aperio product line throughout the year. Major developments included:
$7.40 Billion ($22.28 Billion)
Prior Fiscal: $6.56 Billion
Percentage Change: +12.8%
No. of Employees: 69,000 (total)
Global Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Steven M. Rales, Board Chairman
Rainer M. Blair, President and CEO
Matthew R. McGrew, Exec. VP and CFO
Brian W. Ellis, Sr. VP and General Counsel
William H. King, Sr. VP, Strategic Development
Robert S. Lutz, Sr. VP and Chief Accounting Officer
Daniel A. Raskas, Sr. VP, Corporate Development
Jose-Carlos Guitierrez-Ramos, Sr. VP and Chief Scientific Officer
Julie Sawyer Montgomery, President,
Beckman Coulter Diagnostics
Matt Turner, President, Ormco
Christophe Duret, President, HemoCue
Markus Lusser, President, Leica Microsystems
Susan Murphy, President, Molecular Devices
Joseph Repp, President, Pall Life Sciences
Joe Fox, President, SCIEX
Patrik Eriksson, President, Nobel Biocare
Mike Field, President, Mammotome
Henrik Schimmel, President, Radiometer
B+C+S
Those letters represent the three main components of entrepreneurial success: Brand, Culture, Strategy.
The ideologically simple formula is more or less a philosophy rather than a hard-and-fast rule. Corporate disciples of this doctrine have been rewarded handsomely for their loyalty, both financially and socially.
While straightforward, the formula will only produce results when all three elements are aligned—a feat that is not so simple to achieve. It requires the right mix of branding, along with corporate cultural awareness, social responsibility, stakeholder value, service standards, an “employee-first” tenet, and core company values.
“I created the formula for myself in business years ago to try and figure out how all these things fit in,” independent business consultant Kenneth C. Bator recalled in a podcast (the theorem is detailed in his 2015 book, “The Formula for Business Success = B+C+S”). “In the 1990s when I was in the corporate world, I would run to a seminar about empowerment, then I would pick up a book about re-engineering, and maybe read an article on Six Sigma, and I always thought that in and of itself, this is a great concept, but how do we align and put all these things together? What eventually came to my head was everything seemed to fall into one of three buckets—either branding, culture, or strategy.”
Bator devotes a considerable portion of his book to branding, noting that a company’s mission statement is a vital ingredient within the “B” part of the formula.
Mission statements (sometimes referred to as credos) are relatively common in the business world, as they create a clear identity for companies, and help convey its values and purpose to both employees and the public. Mission statements also provide an ideal vision for an organization and directs its future growth.
Obviously, not all mission statements are created equal. Some are longer than others, some are more explicit than others, and some are more abstract. InVisionapp, for example, is guided by phrases: “Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.” Starbucks’ vision, on the other hand, is more straightforward: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”
Most mission statements, however, fall between the two extremes, mixing Starbucks-style clarity with InVisionapp-type ambiguity. Case in point: Ford Motor Company pledges to “go further to make our cars better, our employees happier, and our planet a better place to be.” Similarly, Nike vows to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” and Danaher Corporation is devoted to “Helping Realize Life’s Potential.”
The latter mission was particularly fitting last year as the Fortune 500 science and technology innovator helped the world realize life’s potential through critical COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.
“The COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives and businesses, suddenly and substantially. We had to invent new ways to support each other and serve our customers while safeguarding our associates’ health and safety,” Danaher president and CEO Rainer M. Blair told shareholders at the start of the company’s 2020 annual report. Blair succeeded former president and CEO Thomas P. Joyce Jr. on Sept. 1.
“...unified by our Shared Purpose, Helping Realize Life’s Potential, we have worked hard to navigate these unprecedented times from a position of strength,” he continued. “Since the onset of the pandemic, our team has met the challenges presented and turned them into impactful opportunities to help our customers and the global community.”
Those opportunities benefited Danaher, too. Total sales jumped 24.4 percent last year to $22.3 billion and gross profit swelled 25 percent to $12.5 billion. Net earnings and basic net earnings per share each grew by 50 percent, to $3.64 billion and $4.97, respectively.
Danaher’s annual report attributes the sales growth to overall increased demand for the company’s products and services, as well as an 18 percent boost from the $21.4 billion addition of General Electric Co.’s biopharmaceutical business. Danaher purchased the business to gain a competitive edge in the global bioprocessing market, a sector forecast to grow 17 percent annually over the next five years.
The deal likely will help Danaher become a major competitor in the biopharmaceutical arena, as it now retains the ability to develop and manufacture both equipment and software used in biopharmaceutical research. Upon closing the transaction in March 2020, Danaher renamed the business (Cytiva) and established it as a standalone company within its Life Sciences segment.
And that new company helped significantly improve segment sales. Total Life Sciences revenue skyrocketed 52.2 percent last year to $10.57 billion, partly due to a 30 percent increase in core Cytiva proceeds between March 31 and Dec. 31, 2020, according to Danaher.
“With the addition of Cytiva, we doubled our annual revenue in the highly attractive biopharmaceutical end-market, which now represents more than 50 percent of our Life Sciences platform’s annual revenue,” Blair wrote in the annual report. “Cytiva achieved more than 25 percent core revenue growth and over $4 billion in revenue. We could not be more pleased with Cytiva’s early results...”
Such delight also was justified within the Diagnostic segment, where total sales rose 13 percent to $7.4 billion and operating profit ballooned 35.6 percent to $1.54 billion.
COVID-19 proved to be a double-edged sword for the segment—while it increased demand for molecular diagnostics and acute care instruments and consumables, lockdowns and other virus-induced restrictions reduced the need for clinical lab instruments and consumables.
Higher demand for blood gas instruments and consumables, partially driven by increased COVID-19 hospitalizations, bolstered acute care diagnostic sales last year. Demand was strong throughout the world, according to Danaher.
Conversely, core clinical lab revenue fell due to lower demand, despite the May 2020 launch of Beckman Coulter’s DxH 690T hematology analyzer, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance of the PK7400 Automated Microplate System last July. The clinical lab deficit, however, was somewhat offset by higher molecular diagnostic revenue, which itself was driven by robust growth of infectious disease instruments and consumable products as well as the development of COVID-19 tests by the company’s Beckman Coulter business.
The pandemic-induced tests included:
- The Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG assay, which targets antibodies that recognize the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein the coronavirus uses to bind to a human cell receptor. RBD-targeting antibodies work by attempting to neutralize and prevent a virus from entering cells. Granted FDA Emergency Use Authorization in late June 2020, the assay has a confirmed 99.6 percent specificity and 100 percent sensitivity at 18 days post-PCR confirmed positive test. It uses immobilized virus antigens on magnetic particles to capture IgG antibodies from patient serum or plasma samples and reveals them using labelled anti-IgG antibodies. The test can be used with various Beckman Coulter analyzers, including the DxI 800, the DxI 600, and the DxCi and Access 2 machines.
- The Access SARS-CoV2 Immunoglobulin M (IgM) assay, a diagnostic with a confirmed 98.3 percent sensitivity at 15-30 days post symptom onset and 99.9 percent specificity. Launched in late August 2020 and securing FDA emergency use authorization two months later, the test uses an immunocapture format to bind patient IgM antibodies on the magnetic particle solid phase and a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 protein- enzyme conjugate to detect COVID-19. The assay can be used in Random Access Mode, which allows it to be run with other immunoassay diagnostics. And like the IgG test, this assay is compatible with various analyzers (DxI 800, DxI 600, and DxC 600i Access 2).
- The Access Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a fully automated immunoassay designed to detect IL-6 levels in serum and plasma. Granted FDA emergency use authorization in October 2020, the test helps clinicians identify a severe inflammatory response (a.k.a. “cytokine storm”) and determine the risk of intubation with mechanical ventilation in COVID-19 patients. IL-6 is a multifunctional cytokine that can cause inflammation (sometimes, intense) in certain clinical conditions; preliminary studies have shown an elevated IL-6 level in severe COVID-19 infections.
Beckman Coulter also began working last year on a federally-funded coronavirus-related sepsis detection algorithm and a rapid diagnostic test for pediatric COVID-19 patients.
The company is collaborating with San Francisco-based algorithm software developer Dascena Inc. on the sepsis diagnostic; the solution would combine clinical data from Beckman Coulter’s monocyte distribution width laboratory tests and patient data from electronic health records in a predictive machine learning algorithm to better and more accurately detect sepsis early. The diagnostic seeks to build on Beckman Coulter’s existing Early Sepsis Indicator, which received FDA 510(k) clearance in April 2019.
“Until recently, the majority of sepsis cases have been thought to be caused by bacterial pathogens,” Shamiram R. Feinglass,M.D., chief medical officer at Beckman Coulter, said in prepared remarks last May. “COVID-19 is changing that, and causing a paradigm shift in how we think about sepsis. The aim...is to determine whether MDW, as part of the sepsis prediction algorithm, will be able to aid in the detection of sepsis regardless of whether it is bacterial or viral-induced.”
Beckman Coulter also will build upon its MDW measurement technology to develop a COVID-19 test for children. The company currently is working to create a blood-based biomarker for measuring MDW, or variations in certain white blood cell sizes, which can indicate a systemic infection.
Funding from BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) will help support a clinical trial of the test that eventually will be administered by Beckman Coulter and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the University of Florida.
Further advancing Beckman Coulter’s sepsis diagnostic capabilities last year was the FDA’s late January 510(k) clearance of the Access PCT assay, an in-vitro analytical test that measures the blood’s procalcitonin levels to determine critically ill patients’ risk of developing severe sepsis or septic shock.
The assay integrates procalcitonin testing into routine sepsis workups on core laboratory analyzers as a primary or reflex test programmed through Beckman Coulter’s Remisol Advance middleware, according to the company. Access PCT is available for use on the company’s Access family of immunoassay systems, including the Access 2, UniCel Dxl 600, and UniCel Dxl 800.
Sepsis was not the only diagnostic capability Danaher (through its various standalone businesses) augmented last year.
Higher demand for advanced staining consumables and pathology imaging products prompted Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based Leica Biosystems Inc. to enhance its Aperio product line throughout the year. Major developments included:
- The fusion of Leica’s Aperio AT2 DX System (digital pathology whole slide imaging) and Aperio Path DX, a web-based case management software. The latter offers tailored software workflows for histotechnicians and pathologists, including quality control, case assembly, assignment, and review. It provides a secure digital workstream from the pathology lab to the pathologist’s desk, supporting the on-screen primary diagnosis capabilities of the Aperio AT2 DX System.
- Two FDA enforcement discretions, which permitted the use of consumer technology for remote work during the pandemic. One discretion allowed consumer monitors to be used with the Aperio ImageScope DX Viewer, with images acquired on the Aperio AT2 DX Scanner. The second discretion greenlighted remote diagnoses through the Aperio WebViewer, a web-based viewing software within Aperio eSlide Manager, with images captured on the Aperio AT2 or Aperio AT2 DX digital pathology scanners.
- The Aperio GT 450 DX’s springtime launch in Asia and midsummer unveiling in Europe. The next-generation digital pathology scanner—touted as a “no touch” operation—has continuous loading capabilities and boasts a 32-second scan speed, producing 81 slides an hour at 40x magnification.