Topic: How To Invest

Q: Thanks for all your recommendations over the years, Pat. Can I have your advice on Bio-Rad Laboratories? The share price is down.

Article Excerpt

A: Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., $316.71, symbol BIO on New York (Shares outstanding: 23.4 million; Market cap: $9.0 billion; www.bio-rad.com), is a multinational manufacturer and worldwide distributor of its own life science research and clinical diagnostics products. Those products and systems are used to separate complex chemical and biological materials and to identify, analyze and purify their components. Bio-Rad’s customers operate in life-science research, healthcare, analytical chemistry and other markets. The company has distribution channels in over 35 countries outside the U.S. Bio-Rad has two main business segments: Life Sciences, and Clinical Diagnostics. The Life Sciences unit (44% of sales) provides systems, reagents and consumables that are typically used to separate, purify, characterize, or quantify biological material such as cells, proteins and nucleic acids. These are used in research laboratories or in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and quality control processes. The Clinical Diagnostics segment (56%) designs, manufactures, markets and supports test systems, computational systems, test kits and specialized quality controls that serve clinical laboratories in the global…