Having freed myself from a life of sitting at a bench doing experiments, I now continue my list of laboratory supply companies that should grow as the health-care sector grows. They've got potential to grow as fast as the health-care sector without having to deal with clinical trial results.
Earlier this week I wrote an article that discussed companies that provide valuable research supplies to laboratories. In today's article I'll concentrate on those that supply equipment to the labs. As with the last group, this is a list of companies to check out because they're providing good equipment that I know scientists buy, but it's not a ringing endorsement to buy the stocks. I'll leave the due diligence up to you.
One theme you'll see is that, in addition to selling equipment, the companies also sell the consumables, which are used up and need to be bought again and again, that work in their machines. In some cases -- like PCR machines -- consumables are readily available from multiple sources, but in many cases the companies have designed the equipment to work only with their consumables. That means that placement of machines drives consumable product sales, and investors just need to keep track of placement rates to get an idea of where future sales are headed.
