Life Sciences & Diagnostic Tools: Capital Deployment update, with both M&A and buybacks top-of-mind

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Life Sciences & Diagnostic Tools: Capital Deployment update, with both M&A and buybacks top-of-mind

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Life Sciences & Diagnostic Tools

Capital Deployment update, with both

M&A and buybacks top-of-mind

Industry Overview

Capital deployment again common topic amongst Tools 17 June 2026

Capital deployment remains a key question in the Life Science Tools space and investors Equity

are looking for more signals from management teams on potential M&A and share United States

buybacks. Given recent activist engagement (Engine Capital / Avantor (AVTR), Elliott / Life Sciences & Diagnostic Tools

Bio-Rad (BIO, not covered), Ananym Capital / Bio-Techne (TECH, not covered)] and Michael Ryskin

management team transition at Qiagen (QGEN), we’ve received questions around Research Analyst

potential consolidation within the group. In this note, we’ve compared product portfolios BofAS+1 646 855 4373

& overlaps of BIO / TECH vs. rest of our Tools coverage (Exhibit 1), and reviewed net michael.ryskin@bofa.com

leverage & capital deployment commentary from Tools companies (Exhibit 2). Avantika Dhabaria

Research Analyst

BofAS

+1 646 743 0170M&A vs Buybacks?

avantika.dhabaria@bofa.com

We continue to expect a healthy level of capital deployment in the Tools sector in 2026.

Alexa Chan

While M&A remains a priority for many Tools companies, we won’t be surprised to see Research Analyst

more share buybacks given management interest and depressed share level across the BofAS

+1 646 855 5636

Tools sector. alexa.chan@bofa.com

• Danaher (DHR) continues to bias towards M&A, although the company has

performed several sizable share buybacks in the past years (uncharacteristic for LST: Life Science Tools

the company). We’ve also noticed that some investors have increasingly argued