Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.

Overview

Bio-Rad is a multinational life science and clinical diagnostics company that develops, manufactures, and markets a broad portfolio of instruments, systems, reagents, and consumables. Corporate headquarters: Hercules, California.

Global operations

• Direct operations in more than 36 countries outside the United States through subsidiaries focused on sales, customer service, and product distribution.
• In some locations, sales are supplemented by distributors and agents.
• Employees: approximately 7,450 worldwide (as of December 31, 2025).
• Geographic distribution of employees: about 46% in the Americas, 36% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and 18% in Asia Pacific.
• Global footprint spans 37 countries.

Business segments and focus

• Life Science (about 40% of consolidated net sales for the year ended December 31, 2025)

  • Develops, manufactures, and markets instruments, systems, reagents, and consumables used to separate, purify, characterize, and quantify biological materials (cells, proteins, nucleic acids).
  • Applications include research and biopharmaceutical laboratories, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, quality control, food safety testing, and science education.
  • Product portfolio: thousands of life science products distributed globally.

• Clinical Diagnostics (about 60% of consolidated net sales for the year ended December 31, 2025)

  • Designs, manufactures, markets, and supports diagnostic test systems, informatics solutions, test kits, and specialized quality controls for clinical laboratories.
  • Market focus: in vitro diagnostics (IVD), with emphasis on differentiated diagnostic applications; supports more than 300 clinical diagnostic tests.
  • Business model: reagents, instruments, and software are typically provided as integrated systems to support standardized laboratory workflows and reproducible test results. Revenue is largely recurring through ongoing sales of test kits and consumables for installed diagnostic platforms.

Market size context (worldwide)

• Life science product markets: estimated worldwide sales in Bio-Rad’s served markets ≈ $19 billion.
• Clinical diagnostics (IVD) product markets: estimated worldwide sales in Bio-Rad’s served markets ≈ $16 billion.
• These figures reflect market sizes, not Bio-Rad’s own annual net sales.

Customers

Principal customers include:

• Universities and medical schools
• Industrial research organizations
• Government agencies
• Pharmaceutical manufacturers
• Biotechnology companies
• Food producers and testing laboratories

Global customer base also includes hospital and reference laboratories, diagnostic manufacturers, and companies in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, chemical, and food industries.

International and market position

• U.S. share of consolidated net sales: approximately 40%.
• International share: approximately 60%, with Europe as the largest international region.

Investments and ownership

• Sartorius AG investment: Bio-Rad owned 12,987,900 ordinary voting shares and 9,588,908 preference shares of Sartorius as of December 31, 2025 (about 38% of Sartorius’s outstanding ordinary shares and 28% of its preference shares).
• Fair value of the Sartorius investment: approximately $5,669.2 million as of December 31, 2025.
• Bio-Rad accounts for the Sartorius investment at fair market value and does not include Sartorius’s financial results in Bio-Rad’s consolidated financial statements.

Intellectual property, R&D and operations

Bio-Rad maintains an extensive intellectual property portfolio (patents, trademarks, licenses) and emphasizes ongoing research and development, regulatory compliance, and global supply chain management as part of its operations.