The call in brief

Read the Q3 2025 earnings summary ↗

Danaher beat on revenue, earnings and cash flow in the third quarter, with sales of $6.1 billion, 3% core growth and adjusted EPS of $1.89 up about 10%, led by bioprocessing consumables and better-than-expected Cepheid respiratory revenue. Bioprocessing equipment fell in the high teens as customers awaited policy clarity, while China diagnostics and life-science research markets remained pressured. The company generated $1.4 billion of free cash flow, authorized a new 35 million share buyback, and set an initial 2026 framework of 3%-6% core growth and high-single-digit EPS growth, with equipment assumed flat and a modest China diagnostics headwind.

What went well
  • Third quarter results exceeded revenue, earnings and cash flow expectations, with sales of $6.1 billion and 3% core revenue growth driven by DBS execution, continued bioprocessing momentum and better than expected respiratory revenue at Cepheid.
  • Bioprocessing core revenue grew high single digits, with double digit consumables growth driven by robust demand for commercialized therapies at large pharma and CDMO customers.
  • Biotechnology segment core revenue increased 6.5%, and adjusted operating profit margin of 27.9% expanded 40 basis points year over year on higher volume leverage and disciplined cost management.
  • Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.89 rose approximately 10% year over year.
  • The company generated $1.4 billion of free cash flow in the quarter and $3.5 billion year to date, a 146% free cash flow to net income conversion ratio, while deploying about $2 billion to repurchase 10 million shares and authorizing a new 35 million share buyback program.
  • Substantial innovation investment yielded several product launches, including Cytiva's AKTA readyflux TFF system 500, IDT's high purity customizable guide RNAs, and Beckman Coulter's Access BD-Tau assay.
What went wrong
  • Bioprocessing equipment revenue declined in the high teens versus prior year, as customers awaited clarity on the policy environment before finalizing investment decisions, with cautious equipment spending expected through the rest of the year.
  • High growth markets grew only low single digits as solid performance outside China was offset by a mid single digit decline in China, driven by diagnostics declines from volume based procurement and reimbursement policy changes.
  • Life sciences end markets did not inflect, with declines in protein research instrumentation as academic and government research customers continued to face funding constraints.
  • Discovery and medical core revenue grew only low single digits, with the protein discovery business facing the same end market pressures as life science tools.

Management Commentary

Read the Q3 2025 summary ↗
John Bedford
VP of Investor Relations, Danaher Corporation

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us on the call. With us today are Rainer Blair, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt McGrew, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to point out that our earnings release, quarterly report on Form 10-Q, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call, and a note containing details of historical and anticipated future financial performance are all available on the Investors section of our website www.danaher.com under the heading Quarterly Earnings. The audio portion of this call will be archived on the Investors section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations and will remain archived until our next quarterly call. A dial-in replay of this call will also be available until November 4th, 2025.

During the presentation we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Our Form 10-Q and the supplemental materials describe additional factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Unless otherwise noted, all references in these remarks and supplemental materials to company-specific financial metrics relate to the third quarter of 2025 and all references to period-to-period increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. We may also describe certain products and devices which have applications submitted and pending for certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets. During the call we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future.

These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including those set forth in our SEC filings and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rainer.

Rainer Blair
President and CEO, Danaher Corporation

All right, thank you John and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. We're encouraged by our strong third quarter results. Our team's DBS driven execution paired with continued momentum in our bioprocessing business and better than expected respiratory revenue at Cepheid enabled us to exceed our revenue, earnings and cash flow expectations across our end markets. Underlying conditions in the third quarter were generally consistent with what we saw in the first half of the year in pharma. Global production of monoclonal antibodies, where the majority of our exposure lies, remained robust. We continued to see a modest recovery in pharma R&D spending, though it remains below historical levels in academic and government demand was stable sequentially but remained soft amid ongoing uncertainty around research funding. Despite some encouraging headlines late in the quarter, clinical diagnostics and applied markets held up well.

Now we remain intensely focused on what we can control to continue delivering for our customers, associates and shareholders. Our team is leveraging the Danaher Business System to mitigate ongoing geopolitical and policy related pressures and drive meaningful productivity gains across our businesses. At the same time, we're continuing to invest in innovation to strengthen our long term competitive position, including accelerating digital and artificial intelligence initiatives. We're accustomed to tackling challenges head on and turning them into opportunities and we expect that mindset and momentum to continue as we move forward into 2026 and beyond. Let's take a closer look at our third quarter 2025 results. Sales were $6.1 billion in the third quarter and we delivered 3% core revenue growth. Geographically, core revenues in developed markets were up mid single digits with North America up mid single digits and Western Europe approximately flat.

Core revenues in high growth markets were up low single digits as solid performance outside of China was offset by a mid single digit decline in China. Growth in our biotechnology and life sciences businesses in China was more than offset by declines in diagnostics due to volume based procurement and reimbursement policy changes implemented in the last 12 months. Our gross profit margin for the third quarter was 58.2%, and our adjusted operating profit margin of 27.9% was up 40 basis points year-over-year as the favorable impacts of higher volume leverage and disciplined cost management more than offset the impact of productivity investments. Adjusted diluted net earnings per common share of $1.89 were up approximately 10% year-over-year.

We generated $1.4 billion of free cash flow in the quarter and $3.5 billion in the first three quarters of the year, resulting in a year to date free cash flow to net income conversion ratio of 146%. During the quarter, we deployed approximately $2 billion of capital towards the repurchase of 10 million shares of Danaher common stock. Additionally, our Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the purchase of up to 35 million additional shares of Danaher common stock. Our substantial investments in innovation over the last several years led to the launch of several leading edge products and technologies this quarter. Each one of these new solutions is designed to enhance our competitive positioning while enabling customers to improve quality and yield, lower costs, and accelerate the delivery of life changing therapies and diagnostics.

Let me highlight a few examples and the tangible value they're creating for our customers. In biotechnology, Cytiva launched the ÄKTA readyflux TFF system 500, a fully automated benchtop tangential flow filtration system developed to meet growing demand for efficient low volume processing. The readyflux TFF system 500 minimizes product loss, improves yield, and enables effective process development with limited material. Importantly, the readyflux platform is now scalable from process development to commercial production, enabling customers to quickly and smoothly transition across different stages of drug development. This system is one of several planned launches, including the new TFF filter cartridges and our next generation perfusion system. Together with our new Xccelerex platform, bioreactors, and differentiated filtration and cell culture media offerings, these solutions provide a powerful upstream package that helps customers improve yields and efficiency in the intensified biologic drug manufacturing process.

It also underscores the breadth and the depth of Cytiva's leading portfolio and our ability to support customers across the bioprocessing workflow from early stage process development through to commercial manufacturing. In life sciences, IDT announced a strategic expansion of its end to end translational gene editing portfolio with the launch of high purity customizable guide RNAs. As scientists move from early research towards clinical applications, the need for greater purity and flexibility in CRISPR tools increases. These new guide RNAs, key components that direct CRISPR systems to specific genes, give researchers more control over sequence design, lengths, and modifications to meet their precise needs. These capabilities are especially valuable for scientists in preclinical testing who require high quality materials for studies like toxicology ahead of clinical trials. In diagnostics, Beckman Coulter launched the Access BD-Tau assay.

This is the industry's first fully automated research use only immunoassay for brain derived tau protein, a promising blood based biomarker for researching neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. This assay leverages the high resolution DxI 9000 analyzer to bring automation and scalability to tau protein quantification. Ultimately, this powerful technology combination can help improve research efficiency, enhance consistency in long term clinical trials, and support accelerated regulatory pathways through stronger real world evidence. Now let's take a closer look at our results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end markets today. Core revenue in our biotechnology segment increased 6.5%. Core revenue in discovery and medical grew low single digits in the quarter. Growth in medical and lab filtration was partially offset by declines in protein research instrumentation, where academic research customers continue to face funding constraints.

Core revenue in bioprocessing grew high single digits with double digit growth in consumables partially offset by declines in equipment. Consumables growth was driven by robust demand for commercialized therapies at our large pharma and CDMO customers. Equipment revenue grew sequentially but declined in the high teens versus prior year as expected. Now, while we're seeing strong funnels and customers have a healthy pipeline of planned projects, this hasn't translated into equipment order growth as customers are awaiting additional clarity on the policy environment before finalizing their investment decisions. Based on what we're seeing today, we expect cautious equipment spending through the remainder of the year.

That said, with several billions of dollars invested to expand capacity at Cytiva since 2020, including meaningful additions at our facilities in Florida, South Carolina, Utah, and Michigan, we believe we are very well positioned to help customers execute in region for region manufacturing strategies. The long term outlook for the biologics market remains very healthy. The primary growth driver of Cytiva's bioprocessing business is the increasing global production of biological medicines, particularly monoclonal antibodies. Underlying biologic demand has grown double digits annually over the last 10+ years and we expect strong demand growth to continue in 2025 and beyond. This growth has been supported by a steady pace of new FDA drug approvals, building on several consecutive years with record setting FDA approvals, as well as a continued shift in pharmaceutical pipelines towards biologics.

In fact, more than 2/3 of the world's top 100 drugs are projected to be biologics by 2030. At the same time, we've seen increased development of biosimilars and expanded indications for existing therapies, both of which are expected to drive production volume growth. The substantial and sustained level of activity we have seen reinforces our conviction in the significant opportunity ahead in this market and supports the long term core revenue growth trajectory for our leading bioprocessing franchise. Now turning to our life sciences segment, core revenue decreased by 1%. Core revenue in our life sciences instrument businesses was up slightly in the quarter. By end market, clinical and applied markets held up well globally.

Demand from academic and government customers remained soft but was stable sequentially, and as I mentioned earlier, we continued to see modest recovery in pharma spending with revenue from these customers growing in the quarter. In China, moderate improvements in the funding environment led to increased activity levels, which contributed to revenue growth in the quarter. Core revenue in our life sciences consumables businesses, which include IDT, Aldevron, Abcam, and Phenomenex, declined in the quarter primarily due to lower demand for plasmids and mRNA from two of our larger customers as well as continued funding pressure across early stage biotech and academic research. Declines related to these funding pressures were partially offset by growth in next generation sequencing products at IDT and recombinant proteins at Abcam. Moving to our diagnostics segment, core revenue increased 3.5%.

Core revenue in our clinical diagnostics businesses was up low single digits with high single digit growth outside of China. Leica Biosystems delivered over 10% core growth with broad-based strength across core histology, advanced staining, and digital pathology. Beckman Coulter Diagnostics also had another solid quarter with mid single digit growth outside of China. This marks Beckman's fifth consecutive quarter of mid single digit or better core growth outside of China, driven by continued uptake of recent innovations such as the DxI 9000 and strong momentum in commercial execution. In molecular diagnostics, Cepheid's core revenue was up mid single digits in the quarter. High single digit growth across Cepheid's core non-respiratory test menu was led by approximately 20% growth in sexual health. Respiratory revenue exceeded expectations as customers began purchasing earlier than typical in preparation for the upcoming respiratory season.

John Bedford
VP of Investor Relations, Danaher Corporation

Thank you, Rainer. Operator, that concludes our formal comments. We're now ready for questions.

Analyst Q&A

Michael Ryskin — Managing Director, Bank of America
Great. Thanks for the question, guys. Morning. Maybe just start where you left off, Rainer. Around fiscal year 2026, the 3%-6% range, I think it's roughly where people were expecting, but it is a little bit of a wider range. I realize we're still in October, so still very, very early, a lot of uncertainty, but maybe you could just talk to the high points of what gets you there and then maybe you know, what the world looks like for a 3% versus a 6%. Where do you need to see more improvement relative to this year to get there? I guess sort of like what's still up in the air to figure out if you come to the 3% or the 6%.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thanks, Mike, and good morning everyone. Let me just dive right in, but before I get started, let me provide a little bit of context to this. We've come off a strong quarter with beats on the top and bottom lines and cash flow. I think it's important to see how Q3 demonstrates the earnings power of our portfolio and the execution of the team even at a relatively modest growth rate. We're taking that Q3 beat to really proactively invest in further meaningful cost measures in Q4 to set up 2026. Mike, that's an important factor here in how we're thinking about 2026 now. The market and the policy environment, whilst improving, is still fairly dynamic. We could see a range of outcomes in 2026, which we're ring fencing between 3%-6% top line growth and high single digit earnings growth.
For planning purposes, we think it's prudent to assume modest recovery in our end markets. Let me talk about some of those. In biotechnology, we expect high single digit core growth. In bioprocessing, that's similar to what we've seen in 2025. We expect bioprocessing consumables to remain strong given the monoclonal antibody pipeline, the on market momentum of those commercialized drugs, as well as our leading position. We're assuming for planning purposes that equipment is flat next year given that the order trajectory through Q3 has continued as it has in the first half. The planning assumption is that that remains flat. In life sciences, we're not planning for meaningful improvement in our end markets. In Q3, Life Sciences performed as expected and the activity levels were fairly positive, but we just didn't see that convert to orders that would provide an inflection.
We're assuming here that our growth would improve modestly as we work through some of the headwinds in our life science consumables business. As we think about diagnostics here, we're assuming growth accelerates as we move past China policy headwinds where we've taken a conservative view and continue to execute well globally. Lastly, importantly, we need to think about respiratory for 2026, and here we believe that it's going to be similar to 2025 at sort of that endemic rate that we've talked about of $1.7 billion.
Of course we're going to provide more quantitative view to all of this in January when we provide our guide. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how we're thinking about 2026 directionally. Maybe Matt can comment here a little bit more on the EPS side of it.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Sure. Like Rainer said, we're kind of expecting 3%-6% core growth here next year. Excuse me, I would anchor at the low end of that range to begin with and we'll kind of see how the year plays out as we go and we provide some updates as we go. I would anchor at the low end to start. From the [MAB], on the EPS perspective, I'd assume 35%-40% fall through on the volume plus the impact of the cost actions. That is going to equal 100 basis points, north of 100 basis points for margin expansion, like Rainer talked about in the prepared remarks. This gives you the high single digit EPS growth even at the low end of the range.
Maybe just to give you a little bit of color around the cost actions we talked about, we're doing $150 million in the fourth quarter, but we're going to do $175 million in total here in 2025 and we do not expect these cost actions to repeat in 2026. These are sort of one-time items and we do expect the cost actions, that $175 million, to generate a net $75 million in savings. All up, all in, you're talking about a $250 million type savings number in 2026 that gives you, call it, $0.30 of EPS tailwind as we head into the year.
As I think about 2025 and I think about what we're doing here in the fourth quarter to set ourselves up, I think we're going to be in a really good position to deliver high single digit EPS growth even if we end up at the low end of that range and we might do better in 2026. As Rainer said in the prepared remarks, all before we have any capital deployment either.
Michael Ryskin — Managing Director, Bank of America
Okay, that's all really, really helpful. Appreciate the bridge. Maybe quick follow up if I can. Rainer, you touched a little bit on China diagnostics and VBP. A lot of concern on that. You just talked about, you know, as you move past the headwind, but you're still taking a conservative view. Just expand on what you're seeing in VBP. I think you're lapping the comps as you get into the fourth quarter, but there's concern of another wave down the road. Maybe oncology and thyroid was called out by another player in the market. Just sort of how de-risk this China diagnostics from a VBP perspective for 2027?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yeah, Mike, I mean I think we sort of have seen, like you said, we are getting to the other side of the wave here that started in Q4 with the first reimbursement in China. We will anniversary that. I think as we sort of have dealt with what has come up, the reimbursements, the various policy, you know, sort of changes during the year, I think we're pretty well dialed in. I mean I would say that for next year, our assumption is that we probably have maybe $75 million-$100 million of headwind here, which on a Danaher level is fairly modest and manageable. I think that's kind of where we were or where we are from a planning perspective.
I think that's a pretty good place to be given what we know today and have got visibility to some of the things that are coming and certainly have visibility to everything that's already been announced.
Michael Ryskin — Managing Director, Bank of America
Great, thank you.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thanks Mike.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Tycho.
Tycho Peterson — Managing Director, Jefferies
Hey, good morning. Want to probe on the biotech comments here a little bit. Just, you know, maybe talk about some of the puts and takes in the guide for the fourth quarter. I guess, you know, what does it take for you to call an equipment recovery here? Can you just maybe talk about, you know, the order book, how the funnel is building, and you know, the odds that you could actually see an equipment pick up next year on the biotech side?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yeah, Tycho, let me just give you the, for the fourth quarter I can give you a little color on the numbers to make sure everybody's got those. Then Rainer can comment a little bit more on the equipment side and what it would take. I think it is for, you know, for modeling purposes, just so as everybody's on the same page here. Biotechnology in the fourth quarter, we are going to be high single digits in bioprocessing and we are seeing [DNM] down mid single digits. Discovery Medical, a lot of that has to do with a prior year comp, remember they were up low double digits and frankly they continue to see softness. Remember, we've got the kind of a protein discovery business in there that acts a lot like a life science tool business.
They're sort of seeing the same end market pressures as we see in life sciences there. Hence the reason they're down mid single digit. Just to be very clear, bioprocessing in the fourth quarter is high single digits.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Tycho, as it relates to the equipment question, I've been spending a fair amount of time with pharma customers here. I do that generally, but even more so here in the last several weeks to understand how they're thinking about reshoring and generally speaking, equipment investments. First of all, the activity level in the end market, so the manufacturing volumes continue to increase. There is a need more generally to continue to invest in equipment. That's probably been held up a little bit here due to some of the policy discussions that have been ongoing. What I've noted here in these discussions with some of the senior pharma leaders is that there's more confidence now in making these investment decisions as some of these most favored nation negotiations are becoming to workable solutions and the tariffs are starting to dial in and remain somewhat consistent.
Generally speaking, what we're seeing here is more activity, more discussion. While some of that planning is still fairly high level, certainly for greenfield investments, what we're seeing is activity and quotations and so forth around more brownfield investments. We just haven't seen those turn into orders yet. Having said that, we're fairly constructive on equipment, but from a planning perspective, we thought it was prudent here to continue with what we've seen here up and through the third quarter.
Tycho Peterson — Managing Director, Jefferies
Okay, that's helpful. Maybe just flipping over to diagnostics. Appreciate the China VBP commentary. Maybe just can you talk about what's baked in for next year for Beckman, ex-VBP, is that mid single digit plus? Is anything kicking in from Alzheimer's or is that too early? Similarly, for Cepheid, away from respiratory, how do you think about the base business there next year?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yeah, I mean, I think it's too early for Alzheimer's, I think. I mean that's probably a longer term play for us. I don't think we've got anything kind of built in or baked in for that. I would expect that for Beckman for next year. I mean we can kind of get into a little bit more details when we give the formal numbers, if you will, in January. You know, they've been executing very well. They've got great good new product launch in the DxI 9000. You know, they've been outside of China. That's been a mid single digit growth plus, you know, mid single digit growth business. I would expect that that would continue as we move into next year. As far as Cepheid and again outside of respiratory, respiratory, our assumptions there will be essentially flat at $1.7 billion.
Outside of that, that's been a business that has done sort of, you know, high single low double digits on a pretty consistent basis on non respiratory. I think with the install base continuing to sort of expand and as we start to add more menu onto existing customers, I suspect that those levels are a good place to start as well.
Tycho Peterson — Managing Director, Jefferies
Okay, leave it at that. Thanks, guys.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thanks, Tycho.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Scott.
Scott Davis — Founding Partner, Chairman, and CEO, Melius Research
Hey, good morning guys. Things seem to be more stable the last couple quarters. It's nice to see that. I was curious just on the mix between kind of respiratory and sexual health and Cepheid because you quoted some pretty strong growth numbers on the sexual health side, but then also kind of guiding to more flattish in 2026 versus 2025 totally for Cepheid. Perhaps a little bit more granularity that would be helpful.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
I think we're sort of guiding to the respiratory to be flat year over year, which would not have sexual health in it. I think we talked a little bit earlier on the question with Tycho that outside of respiratory, which is where sexual health would reside, that we would expect. We've seen that business kind of be high single, low double digits, and I would expect that would continue into next year. Sexual health will be a part of the growth there for sure, has been, and I suspect that it will be for a while as we go forward and expand that menu and drive penetration.
Scott Davis — Founding Partner, Chairman, and CEO, Melius Research
To be clear, then Cepheid should grow in 2026 versus 2025. That's what you're expecting?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
I think so.
Scott Davis — Founding Partner, Chairman, and CEO, Melius Research
All right, fair enough. Just a little bit of question, I guess, is on the contract structures that you have. Have they changed over the last few years just given the tariff and cost inflation dynamics we've had, supply chain, et cetera? It's been all kinds of headaches that many companies have had. Have your contract structures adapted in a way, and clearly this is more complicated equipment and consumables. Is it adapted in a way that allows you to adjust pricing a little bit easier for potential headwinds that could arise?
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Scott, over the years, we have brought more flexibility into that. Of course, each contract is specific to a given customer's needs, and we try to be responsive to those. Generally speaking, as you think about bioprocessing, for instance, we have a fair amount of both flexibility and, to some degree, leverage there in order to drive differentiated pricing for differentiated solutions.
Scott Davis — Founding Partner, Chairman, and CEO, Melius Research
Fair enough. Best of luck, guys. Thank you.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thank you, Scott.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Doug.
Doug Schenkel — Managing Director and Head of Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, Wolfe Research
Good morning, Rainer. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the questions. One quick one on recent events. Have you seen any change in activity over the last few weeks or even just in the tone of discussions with biotech and pharmaceutical customers since the Pfizer MFN announcement came out? I'm guessing you didn't reflect anything in guidance based on the way you talked about your framework if things are improving. I'm curious if you've seen any changes.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Doug, I think I would say yes, and also correct that we have not reflected that in our guidance here, neither for the fourth quarter nor for our initial thoughts on 2026, because we like to see the shift in tone turn into demonstrated order patterns so that we actually see the trend. Having said that, as I mentioned earlier, have been out in the market a fair amount all over the globe here, talking to various pharma executives and there is more confidence that the policy environment is finding more balance and that some of these overhangs, whether that's the most favored nations discussions where, like I say, some of those are not always great, but they are workable and remove an overhang for our pharma customers on the one hand. On the other hand, we do see the tariff situation stabilizing and becoming planable.
In that context, we're starting to see more confidence regarding capital investment decisions and the location of those investments going forward. We're looking for that of course to now translate from activity and quotations into stronger order patterns. We haven't seen that yet. As a result of that, we're not reflecting that yet in any of our guides.
Doug Schenkel — Managing Director and Head of Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, Wolfe Research
Okay, super helpful then. Thank you for the framework for 2026, I have a question on margins. I think with this morning's announcement, by the end of this year you will have invested, I think it's about $300 million in productivity enhancements in 2025. Unlike a lot of your peers, you don't one time those out, so that actually depressed margin this year by over 100 basis points.
As we think about next year and the benefits of those initiatives rolling through, is there an argument that, even though you talked about 100 basis points of margin expansion potential next year, we think about kind of adj the base up this year and you guys getting maybe low single digits to even mid single digit top line growth, that all in all the error bars probably skew to the upside as we think about margins for next year, again just rolling through the benefits of all the productivity enhancements that you're putting into place as we speak.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
First, I would just kind of anchor on, I believe that a 35%-45% fall through in the impact of just the $250 million I talked about, that's north of 100 basis points.
Doug Schenkel — Managing Director and Head of Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, Wolfe Research
Right.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Because I think when you go to do your math it's not going to be 100. I think you're right on that point. As far as is there more than what we have sort of offered up here? It is a net number so that we can continue to invest in the business. I think this is the right balance of investing in the business, making sure that we're also delivering high single digit or better EPS growth as we head into 2026. We do want to leave ourselves some room for that investment. As the year plays out, we can always kind of tweak and work with that. I think the frame that you've laid out of north of 100 basis points of margin expansion is very fair. Like I said, that $250 million of net savings gets us that $0.30 tailwind.
I feel pretty comfortable about, you know, high single digit EPS, even if we're at the, you know, the low end of the guide of the range.
Doug Schenkel — Managing Director and Head of Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, Wolfe Research
Okay. All right, thanks guys.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thanks, Doug.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Vijay.
Vijay Kumar — Analyst, Evercore ISI
Hi Rainer. Good morning and thank you for taking my question. My first one on if I wanted to touch on the fourth quarter diagnostics assumptions, think ex-Respiratory in ex-China. Looks like the business has done around mid singles for the past two quarters. I think a guide implies for Q4 double digits. Maybe talk about what changes sequentially from 3Q to 4Q and what drives the optimism for diagnostics ex-China, ex-Respiratory.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
I think that the uptick is VBP lapses. That's the delta. I don't think anything changes with the rest of the core business. I think that's mid single digit, that base business, if you will. Remember, we took the first hit in respiratory in China with VBP and reimbursement in Q4. I think it's the reimbursement, it's the VBP that gets better, not the base building.
Vijay Kumar — Analyst, Evercore ISI
Sorry, Matt. I think. Am I correct in assuming ex-Respiratory and ex-China the business is mid-singles in Q3?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yes.
Vijay Kumar — Analyst, Evercore ISI
That assumption doesn't change for Q4, mid-singles, or does it change ex-Respiratory or ex-China?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Again, I think your ex-China is the piece, Vijay, that is going to. That China number is going to get better in the fourth quarter because we are lapsing reimbursement. Happy to follow up with you on some numbers offline.
Vijay Kumar — Analyst, Evercore ISI
Understood. Maybe Rainer, one for you on capital deployment. A pretty big share repurchase in that quarter with the new $35 million authorization. How are you thinking of M&A versus share repurchase rate when you look at assets available in the deal pipeline?
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
We maintain a strong bias towards M&A and we continue to be very active on the M&A front. We're cultivating every day and we continue to think about M&A in the context of our framework of attractive end market, attractive company with value reserves and, importantly, the valuation framework. The model has to work and we're going to stick with that discipline. That said, and as we've demonstrated here, we're not opposed to buybacks at current levels. The relative value of a buyback generates attractive financial returns and we will continue to evaluate all our capital allocation using the same ROIC lens. Bias to M&A clearly, but we're going to maintain the discipline. Because we want to see the returns.
Vijay Kumar — Analyst, Evercore ISI
Understood. Thank you, guys.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thanks, Vijay.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Dan.
Dan Brennan — Analyst, TD Cowen
Morning, Rainer. Thanks for the questions here. Maybe just going back to bioprocessing, the equipment side, I know you talked about in the prepared remarks how Cytiva has built up a lot of capacity. You're ready for any demand that comes from this onshoring. Can you just kind of zoom out a little bit and give us a flavor how we might think about this? I know there's been hundreds of billions of announcements, but it's hard for us to parse what's really incremental, what's just shifting from one region to the other and kind of how it might impact you. If we look out, what should we be looking for and could this actually drive some potential real demand benefit for you, whether it be in, you know, exiting 2026 into 2027, anything like that?
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Sure, Dan. I mean, the investment announcements that we've heard from pharma differ in terms of what they include and exclude depending on which pharma company you're talking about. Of course, many times the timelines were five and 10 years. Those numbers grow pretty quickly, especially if the research and development investigation investments were considered in those investment numbers as well. If we put that aside for a minute, there are two factors here that drive equipment demand. First, the manufacturing growth that is required to meet the market demand. We have seen over the last quarters that the equipment investments have been fairly slow. While they've improved slightly, they've been below historical trends while the end market and the production requirements have continued to be strong. There is a general need around the world to start investing in equipment. That's sort of one factor.
You add this trend of regionalization of manufacturing capacity. We think about that in terms of the reshoring discussions here in the United States. Other regions think about regionalizing their manufacturing network as well. That speaks positively to the general environment and the requirement for equipment investments going forward. What has held that up here is the dynamic of policy changes certainly in the U.S. but elsewhere in the world as well, as well as how do we need to think about tariffs and most favored nations pricing. There I've tried to provide a little bit of color that we see those overhangs starting to dissipate as, one, the tariffs have become more planable and predictable and, two, the most favored nation pricing, which is a key factor when you're making these investment decisions as well, is starting to dissipate, as I said, with some workable deals being made.
Generally speaking, that's provided more confidence to the most senior decision makers here in the pharma industry.
Dan Brennan — Analyst, TD Cowen
Great, thank you. Maybe just as a follow up, just on the 2026 guide, I think you discussed a lot about China and bioprocessing, but just on the life science piece, sounds like you're thinking about maybe starting that if Matt talked about 3% as the good starting point for the company. Life science is probably, I guess, zero. Could you unpack a little bit? I know you talked about you're not baking in any improvement just between instruments and genomics. What would have to happen to get to zero? Do you think that's going to prove to be kind of a conservative number? Thank you.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yes, no, I think you're right. Spot on. On that being flat, and again, that's where we've been now. I think part of the reason that we have the same thing, same dynamic in Q4 that we do in life sciences as for all of 2026, it's been where we've been, has been fairly flat as we have not seen that inflection in the market like Rainer's talked about. Maybe you want to talk about what might happen to get.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Sure. Let's start with the fact that the clinical and applied markets have remained fairly solid, and we don't expect that to change. We've also seen a modest recovery in pharma research spending. It's below historical trends, but we've started to see a recovery there, and that was reflected in Q3 as well. It's really academic and government, which, on a global basis, is low single digit exposure for Danaher overall, that is anchoring and holding back some of the growth there. That's the market. If you think about our own business, we're performing well in these segments. We're less exposed to the academic and government side. As it relates to the life science consumables businesses that I talked to earlier, we also think that we're lapping some of those headwinds.
You recall those two large customers that have come off their peak demand pretty significantly, and we've been working through that. We would expect that then also to be reflected in a little bit more supportive and modest growth next year. For planning assumptions, we think where we sit today that it's best to consider flat growth for life sciences in the context of that 2026 guide that we gave you. Is there upside? There is, but we want to see some of that playing through here in orders before we call that trend.
Dan Brennan — Analyst, TD Cowen
Great, thank you.
Jack Meehan — Analyst, Nephron Research
Thank you. Good morning everyone. Want to focus on the diagnostics business. The first question in the quarter, the sales were about $60 million higher than what consensus was looking for. You know, there was about $200 million of upside from respiratory. Everything sounds great in Beckman, ex-China, and Leica. It just wasn't obvious to me what might have fallen short at least versus what the street was thinking. Is there anything that you would call out?
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
No, I would say it was all respiratory, kind of, if you will, a little bit earlier than we expected. I think customers were, you know, just kind of, again, kind of coming earlier than we thought. I would say it was probably $125 million of pull forward, if you want to call it that. There was nothing else to call out in diagnostics.
Jack Meehan — Analyst, Nephron Research
Okay, got it. Actually, I'll pivot to the biotechnology business. Just as a follow-up, can you talk about the dialogue you're having in terms of reshoring. I know you mentioned kind of like the billions of dollars being talked about in manufacturing here in the U.S. How do you think this is going to play out over the next few years? Just any color around what that can mean for both capital demand and recurring for that business. That would be great.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
It's hard to put specific numbers around this, but we would expect that this reshoring in the U.S. particularly, and the regionalization of supply chains, is going to result in continued investment in capital equipment. We think the way that starts is with brownfield investments, where customers are taking advantage of existing facilities in order to get those customers' capacities in place more quickly and also demonstrate that they are investing in the respective regions, including the U.S., while in parallel planning those larger greenfield investments that take a little bit more time. That is a different timeline, which takes certainly a couple of years in the best of cases and can take a little bit longer. Once that gets rolling, we might see an extended capital cycle here over a number of years. We haven't seen that flow through in orders yet.
There are lots of discussions, some of them more near term—that is, those brownfield investments—others at a higher level because those are larger investments that just take more time not only to plan but to execute.
Jack Meehan — Analyst, Nephron Research
Great. Okay, thank you guys.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thank you.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Morning, Puneet.
Puneet Souda — Analyst, Leerink Partners
Thanks, Rainer. My first question is, I appreciate your qualitative comments on the MABs and biologics growth and bioprocessing being high single digit, but just wondering if you could provide any color on the order growth or book to bill in the quarter. I believe it was about one last quarter and we've seen weakness in the AV segment and some of the innovative modalities. Just wondering what's your level of confidence on monoclonal antibody growth offsetting some of that to still deliver high single digit growth? I have a follow up on China.
Matt McGrew — EVP and CFO, Danaher Corporation
Yeah, I mean the book to bill was pretty similar to what we've seen all year, around one. Maybe, Rainer, you want to comment on that?
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Sure. I mean, we continue to see monoclonal antibodies growth as strong not only because the commercial volumes on existing indications are growing more quickly, but also because we see new applications of existing on-market drugs being approved. We also see biosimilars here that are pretty close to the launch as well. We do think that very, very large part of our business, 75% of our business, is in those monoclonal antibodies, and the growth that's associated with that takes care of some of the volatility that we have seen here in some of the [AAB] business, some of which has been around for some time. It's also lapping. Just to say that it's really driven by protein, and these nucleic acid therapies, while they are interesting and efficacious, they will continue to take time to find it into the first line of standard of care.
While we're very well positioned there, what's driving the growth here is really protein monoclonal antibodies going forward.
Puneet Souda — Analyst, Leerink Partners
Okay, thanks, that's helpful. Just a brief question on localization policy in China that has emerged over the last few weeks. There is a 20% pricing rebate for those manufacturing locally. This is beyond the VBP and the DRG headwinds we have been hearing about so could you just remind us how much of your production and sales in China are manufactured locally, and maybe both reagents and on the instrumentation side, where do you have defensiveness and where do you need to expand manufacturing if this was to spread broadly to other government agencies, including academics? Thank you.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Puneet. That 20% that you heard about benefit for local manufacturers is actually not the newest of news. It's been out there informally, which is often how it works in China for some time. I was just in China for a couple of weeks here taking a close look at what's happening and of course talking to customers and government officials and of course our teams. We think that we're very well positioned here as it relates to localization. By the end of the year, much of our diagnostic businesses, whether that's equipment or reagents, will be localized. That degree of localization plays well across the portfolio. While we don't talk about percentages of localization, we think that we're very well positioned here and view this actually as advantageous as opposed to a short term headwind.
Puneet Souda — Analyst, Leerink Partners
Got it. Okay, thank you.
Rainer Blair — President and CEO, Danaher Corporation
Thank you.
John Bedford — VP of Investor Relations, Danaher Corporation
Thank you, David. Thank you everybody. We'll be around all day. Rest of the week for follow-ups. Have a good rest of your Tuesday here.
Source: DANAHER CORP /DE/ earnings call transcript (2025-10-21). Management commentary and analyst Q&A are reproduced as delivered; speaker roles as stated on the call.

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