Waters (WAT)
Supplies analytical instruments, diagnostics, consumables, and service for regulated laboratory workflows.
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Waters sells the machines that tell a lab exactly what is in a sample, then earns for years on the tubes, bottles and repair contracts those machines use up. This year it roughly doubled by taking on two businesses from Becton Dickinson: cell-counting instruments, and testing for blood infections and cervical cancer. The old chemistry side is steady; the bought half was shrinking, and turning it around is the whole bet.
Item facts: Q2 FY2026 · quarter ended July 4, 2026, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
9 in detail · 9 more below
BACTEC blood culture and clinical microbiology
Blood-culture cabinets and the bottles they eat — roughly a fifth of revenue and the most reorder-driven line Waters owns. It grew 4% last quarter while China fell 13%; the swap-out to the new BACTEC FXI is what to watch.
Competes with BACT/ALERT VIRTUO (bioMérieux) · VITEK identification and susceptibility (bioMérieux)
In plain English
When a doctor suspects an infection in someone's bloodstream, the lab draws blood into a sealed bottle and slots that bottle into a cabinet that watches it for bacteria growing. Waters makes both the cabinet and the bottles.
The cabinet is bought once and stays for years; the bottles are used up with every patient draw, and only the matching bottles fit. So the money arrives as a standing reorder from more than ten thousand hospital and reference labs, and every cabinet placed locks in years of it. A newer cabinet, BACTEC FXI, has just cleared European and U.S. regulators, with thousands of ageing units queued to be replaced.
Molecular Diagnostics and Point of Care
Tests for the cervical-cancer virus and for respiratory bugs, run on BD's automated molecular machines: $129M last quarter, up 9%. A kit women can use at home is the new push; a weak flu season still cost about $20M earlier this year.
Competes with cobas HPV (Roche Diagnostics) · Aptima HPV on Panther (Hologic) · Alinity m HR HPV (Abbott)
In plain English
Cervical cancer almost always begins with a common virus, so screening is really a hunt for that virus. Waters sells the test that finds it — Onclarity — plus the big automated machine a lab loads those tests onto.
The machine is placed once and the tests are bought over and over, which is why a placement matters more than the machine's own price. The newer idea is a kit a woman uses at home and mails back; the sample still lands in a lab running the same test, and telehealth firms distribute it. Roughly one in four American women is behind on cervical screening, and that gap is the reason for the kit.
Clinical Business Unit
Waters' own molecule-weighing instruments, cleared for patient testing in toxicology, hormones and women's health. Small at $72M last quarter, but up 15% — the quickest-growing line the company discloses, and its way into BD's hospital-lab customers.
Competes with Topaz clinical mass spectrometry (SCIEX) · Cascadion SM (Thermo Fisher)
In plain English
A hospital lab measuring a hormone level or screening for drugs needs a result a regulator will stand behind. Waters takes the same molecule-weighing instrument its drug-company customers use, has it cleared for patient testing, and sells it into that lab with the support that keeps the result defensible. The newest of them, the Xevo TQ Absolute XR, arrived in July 2026.
It is the smallest line on this map and the fastest-growing one. What makes it interesting is the address book: the acquired BD businesses already sell into hospital labs every day, and management counts on roughly $40M of extra sales from walking Waters' clinical instruments through that door.
Service and support plans
Maintenance, repair and compliance contracts on every Waters instrument already installed — $1.08B in 2025, a third of the old standalone company. It grew 9% last quarter, and only about 40% of the machines bought from BD carry a plan.
Competes with CrossLab instrument services (Agilent) · Unity Lab Services (Thermo Fisher)
In plain English
Every instrument Waters has ever sold sits in a lab that cannot afford it to drift or stop. So the lab buys a yearly contract: scheduled maintenance, repairs when something fails, and the paperwork proving the machine was working properly when it produced a result an inspector will later read.
That contract renews on its own clock, whether or not the lab is buying new equipment — which is why this line kept climbing through years when instrument sales fell. The obvious opening now is the fleet that came with the deal: roughly four in ten of those machines have a plan attached, and raising that is the stated job.
Chemistry consumables and bioseparations columns
The columns and sample-prep supplies every test run burns through: $631.5M in 2025, a fifth of the old standalone company and its fastest-growing part, up 10% last quarter. Demand tracks how many samples labs run, not whether they buy machines.
Competes with InfinityLab Poroshell and AdvanceBio columns (Agilent) · Phenomenex columns (Danaher) · Hypersil and Accucore columns (Thermo Fisher)
In plain English
A column is a pen-sized metal tube packed with treated powder. Push a mixed-up sample through it and the ingredients come out the far end one at a time, in order, so the machine downstream can identify each one. It wears out and gets replaced.
Here is the catch that makes the money stick: once a drugmaker proves a test method works, that exact column is written into the paperwork regulators approved, and switching brands means proving the whole method again. So the orders repeat for as long as the drug is made. Much of the pull right now comes from makers of the new weight-loss and diabetes drugs.
Biosciences — BD FACS flow cytometry
Machines that count and sort individual cells, plus the tagged antibodies they consume — $368M last quarter, the single biggest line on the map. It was shrinking when Waters bought it: clinical use is up 8%, research use still down 2%.
Competes with Aurora and Northern Lights spectral cytometers (Cytek Biosciences) · CytoFLEX (Beckman Coulter Life Sciences) · ID7000 spectral analyzer (Sony Biotech)
In plain English
A drop of blood is a crowd of different cell types, and a lot of medicine comes down to how many of each are present. A flow cytometer sends the cells past a detector one at a time and tallies them by type; a sorter physically pulls out the ones you want. Waters also sells the tagged antibodies that make each cell type stand out, and those get used up.
Hospital labs run standard panels and that half is growing. Research labs are the sore spot: U.S. academic funding is tight, export licences slowed sales into China, and there was no China-built version to offer there. Cytek took share while BD owned this.
Analytical Sciences — chromatography and mass spectrometry systems
The separation-and-weighing hardware Waters is known for, roughly a sixth of revenue and up 8% last quarter. Replacement buying has crawled since 2019; the hoped-for unlock is the wave of new U.S. drug plants going up.
Competes with Orbitrap, TSQ and Vanquish systems (Thermo Fisher) · Triple Quad 7500 (SCIEX) · InfinityLab LC and 6495 triple quadrupole (Agilent)
In plain English
Two machines working as a pair. The first pushes a sample through a column so its ingredients emerge one by one; the second weighs the molecules of each one precisely enough to say what it is and how much is there. Drugmakers use the pair to prove a batch is exactly what the label claims.
These are big one-off purchases, signed off by a lab director who in a lean year signs off on nothing — hence a stretch of slow years since 2019. Each sale also plants a stream of follow-on money: columns, a service plan, software. No single customer accounts for even a tenth of Waters' sales.
Empower
The record-keeping software sitting behind the instruments in a regulated lab — roughly 450,000 users, and the reason a Waters lab stays a Waters lab. It is moving to yearly subscriptions, and the acquired instruments are being wired into it.
Competes with Chromeleon CDS (Thermo Fisher) · OpenLab CDS (Agilent)
In plain English
In a drug lab, nothing counts unless it is recorded so an inspector can audit it years later: who ran what, on which machine, with which settings. Empower keeps that record, and once a lab's methods and history live inside it, swapping the instruments underneath becomes painful and expensive.
It carries no price of its own — it rides inside the hardware and the service plan. Two things are changing it. Waters is shifting customers to yearly subscriptions, and it is making the instruments bought from BD work with Empower too, the stated path to roughly $115M of extra sales from the deal.
Materials Sciences (TA Instruments)
TA Instruments: bench rigs that heat, cool and twist materials to find where they melt, flow or fail — $87M last quarter. U.S. sales fell about 20% in mid-2025 and are growing again on defence, aerospace and chip-lab work.
Competes with DSC 5+ thermal analyzers (Mettler-Toledo) · DSC, TGA and DMA instruments (NETZSCH) · MCR 703 MultiDrive rheometer (Anton Paar)
In plain English
Plastics, battery parts and adhesives all have a point at which they stop behaving — softening, flowing, or letting go. TA's instruments find that point: a small sample is heated, cooled or twisted while the machine records exactly how it responds.
Buyers are polymer and chemical makers, battery makers, aerospace and defence shops and chip labs. They buy the box, then keep paying for service on it. This is the most mood-swinging line Waters owns: when factories stop spending it feels it first, as it did through 2025.
BACTEC blood culture and clinical microbiologyBlood-culture cabinets and the bottles they eat — roughly a fifth of revenue and the most reorder-driven line Waters owns. It grew 4% last quarter while China fell 13%; the swap-out to the new BACTEC FXI is what to watch.Blood-culture cabinets and the bottles they eat — roughly a fifth of revenue and the most reorder-driven line Waters owns. It grew 4% last quarter while China fell 13%; the swap-out to the new BACTEC FXI is what to watch.
In plain English
When a doctor suspects an infection in someone's bloodstream, the lab draws blood into a sealed bottle and slots that bottle into a cabinet that watches it for bacteria growing. Waters makes both the cabinet and the bottles.
The cabinet is bought once and stays for years; the bottles are used up with every patient draw, and only the matching bottles fit. So the money arrives as a standing reorder from more than ten thousand hospital and reference labs, and every cabinet placed locks in years of it. A newer cabinet, BACTEC FXI, has just cleared European and U.S. regulators, with thousands of ageing units queued to be replaced.
Competes with BACT/ALERT VIRTUO (bioMérieux) · VITEK identification and susceptibility (bioMérieux)
Molecular Diagnostics and Point of CareTests for the cervical-cancer virus and for respiratory bugs, run on BD's automated molecular machines: $129M last quarter, up 9%. A kit women can use at home is the new push; a weak flu season still cost about $20M earlier this year.Tests for the cervical-cancer virus and for respiratory bugs, run on BD's automated molecular machines: $129M last quarter, up 9%. A kit women can use at home is the new push; a weak flu season still cost about $20M earlier this year.
In plain English
Cervical cancer almost always begins with a common virus, so screening is really a hunt for that virus. Waters sells the test that finds it — Onclarity — plus the big automated machine a lab loads those tests onto.
The machine is placed once and the tests are bought over and over, which is why a placement matters more than the machine's own price. The newer idea is a kit a woman uses at home and mails back; the sample still lands in a lab running the same test, and telehealth firms distribute it. Roughly one in four American women is behind on cervical screening, and that gap is the reason for the kit.
Competes with cobas HPV (Roche Diagnostics) · Aptima HPV on Panther (Hologic) · Alinity m HR HPV (Abbott)
Clinical Business UnitWaters' own molecule-weighing instruments, cleared for patient testing in toxicology, hormones and women's health. Small at $72M last quarter, but up 15% — the quickest-growing line the company discloses, and its way into BD's hospital-lab customers.Waters' own molecule-weighing instruments, cleared for patient testing in toxicology, hormones and women's health. Small at $72M last quarter, but up 15% — the quickest-growing line the company discloses, and its way into BD's hospital-lab customers.
In plain English
A hospital lab measuring a hormone level or screening for drugs needs a result a regulator will stand behind. Waters takes the same molecule-weighing instrument its drug-company customers use, has it cleared for patient testing, and sells it into that lab with the support that keeps the result defensible. The newest of them, the Xevo TQ Absolute XR, arrived in July 2026.
It is the smallest line on this map and the fastest-growing one. What makes it interesting is the address book: the acquired BD businesses already sell into hospital labs every day, and management counts on roughly $40M of extra sales from walking Waters' clinical instruments through that door.
Competes with Topaz clinical mass spectrometry (SCIEX) · Cascadion SM (Thermo Fisher)
Service and support plansMaintenance, repair and compliance contracts on every Waters instrument already installed — $1.08B in 2025, a third of the old standalone company. It grew 9% last quarter, and only about 40% of the machines bought from BD carry a plan.Maintenance, repair and compliance contracts on every Waters instrument already installed — $1.08B in 2025, a third of the old standalone company. It grew 9% last quarter, and only about 40% of the machines bought from BD carry a plan.
In plain English
Every instrument Waters has ever sold sits in a lab that cannot afford it to drift or stop. So the lab buys a yearly contract: scheduled maintenance, repairs when something fails, and the paperwork proving the machine was working properly when it produced a result an inspector will later read.
That contract renews on its own clock, whether or not the lab is buying new equipment — which is why this line kept climbing through years when instrument sales fell. The obvious opening now is the fleet that came with the deal: roughly four in ten of those machines have a plan attached, and raising that is the stated job.
Competes with CrossLab instrument services (Agilent) · Unity Lab Services (Thermo Fisher)
Chemistry consumables and bioseparations columnsThe columns and sample-prep supplies every test run burns through: $631.5M in 2025, a fifth of the old standalone company and its fastest-growing part, up 10% last quarter. Demand tracks how many samples labs run, not whether they buy machines.The columns and sample-prep supplies every test run burns through: $631.5M in 2025, a fifth of the old standalone company and its fastest-growing part, up 10% last quarter. Demand tracks how many samples labs run, not whether they buy machines.
In plain English
A column is a pen-sized metal tube packed with treated powder. Push a mixed-up sample through it and the ingredients come out the far end one at a time, in order, so the machine downstream can identify each one. It wears out and gets replaced.
Here is the catch that makes the money stick: once a drugmaker proves a test method works, that exact column is written into the paperwork regulators approved, and switching brands means proving the whole method again. So the orders repeat for as long as the drug is made. Much of the pull right now comes from makers of the new weight-loss and diabetes drugs.
Competes with InfinityLab Poroshell and AdvanceBio columns (Agilent) · Phenomenex columns (Danaher) · Hypersil and Accucore columns (Thermo Fisher)
Biosciences — BD FACS flow cytometryMachines that count and sort individual cells, plus the tagged antibodies they consume — $368M last quarter, the single biggest line on the map. It was shrinking when Waters bought it: clinical use is up 8%, research use still down 2%.Machines that count and sort individual cells, plus the tagged antibodies they consume — $368M last quarter, the single biggest line on the map. It was shrinking when Waters bought it: clinical use is up 8%, research use still down 2%.
In plain English
A drop of blood is a crowd of different cell types, and a lot of medicine comes down to how many of each are present. A flow cytometer sends the cells past a detector one at a time and tallies them by type; a sorter physically pulls out the ones you want. Waters also sells the tagged antibodies that make each cell type stand out, and those get used up.
Hospital labs run standard panels and that half is growing. Research labs are the sore spot: U.S. academic funding is tight, export licences slowed sales into China, and there was no China-built version to offer there. Cytek took share while BD owned this.
Competes with Aurora and Northern Lights spectral cytometers (Cytek Biosciences) · CytoFLEX (Beckman Coulter Life Sciences) · ID7000 spectral analyzer (Sony Biotech)
Analytical Sciences — chromatography and mass spectrometry systemsThe separation-and-weighing hardware Waters is known for, roughly a sixth of revenue and up 8% last quarter. Replacement buying has crawled since 2019; the hoped-for unlock is the wave of new U.S. drug plants going up.The separation-and-weighing hardware Waters is known for, roughly a sixth of revenue and up 8% last quarter. Replacement buying has crawled since 2019; the hoped-for unlock is the wave of new U.S. drug plants going up.
In plain English
Two machines working as a pair. The first pushes a sample through a column so its ingredients emerge one by one; the second weighs the molecules of each one precisely enough to say what it is and how much is there. Drugmakers use the pair to prove a batch is exactly what the label claims.
These are big one-off purchases, signed off by a lab director who in a lean year signs off on nothing — hence a stretch of slow years since 2019. Each sale also plants a stream of follow-on money: columns, a service plan, software. No single customer accounts for even a tenth of Waters' sales.
Competes with Orbitrap, TSQ and Vanquish systems (Thermo Fisher) · Triple Quad 7500 (SCIEX) · InfinityLab LC and 6495 triple quadrupole (Agilent)
EmpowerThe record-keeping software sitting behind the instruments in a regulated lab — roughly 450,000 users, and the reason a Waters lab stays a Waters lab. It is moving to yearly subscriptions, and the acquired instruments are being wired into it.The record-keeping software sitting behind the instruments in a regulated lab — roughly 450,000 users, and the reason a Waters lab stays a Waters lab. It is moving to yearly subscriptions, and the acquired instruments are being wired into it.
In plain English
In a drug lab, nothing counts unless it is recorded so an inspector can audit it years later: who ran what, on which machine, with which settings. Empower keeps that record, and once a lab's methods and history live inside it, swapping the instruments underneath becomes painful and expensive.
It carries no price of its own — it rides inside the hardware and the service plan. Two things are changing it. Waters is shifting customers to yearly subscriptions, and it is making the instruments bought from BD work with Empower too, the stated path to roughly $115M of extra sales from the deal.
Competes with Chromeleon CDS (Thermo Fisher) · OpenLab CDS (Agilent)
Materials Sciences (TA Instruments)TA Instruments: bench rigs that heat, cool and twist materials to find where they melt, flow or fail — $87M last quarter. U.S. sales fell about 20% in mid-2025 and are growing again on defence, aerospace and chip-lab work.TA Instruments: bench rigs that heat, cool and twist materials to find where they melt, flow or fail — $87M last quarter. U.S. sales fell about 20% in mid-2025 and are growing again on defence, aerospace and chip-lab work.
In plain English
Plastics, battery parts and adhesives all have a point at which they stop behaving — softening, flowing, or letting go. TA's instruments find that point: a small sample is heated, cooled or twisted while the machine records exactly how it responds.
Buyers are polymer and chemical makers, battery makers, aerospace and defence shops and chip labs. They buy the box, then keep paying for service on it. This is the most mood-swinging line Waters owns: when factories stop spending it feels it first, as it did through 2025.
Competes with DSC 5+ thermal analyzers (Mettler-Toledo) · DSC, TGA and DMA instruments (NETZSCH) · MCR 703 MultiDrive rheometer (Anton Paar)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- BD FACSDiscover A7ProductCell analyzer launched September 2026, built to win back flow-cytometry customers BD had been losing.
- Xevo CDMSProduct · RampingLaunched October 2025 for characterising large molecules; Waters puts the market it opens at roughly $350M.
- Cyclic IMS P20 and Xevo MRT P10Product · RampingTwo molecule-weighing instruments unveiled at the 2026 ASMS conference, this year's additions to the Waters instrument line.
- Wyatt light scattering (omniDAWN)Product lineBought in 2023 for about $1.28B net; sizes molecules by the light they scatter, and was the first non-chromatography technique wired into Empower.
- BioResolve and GTxResolve columnsProduct · RampingColumns launched in 2026 for separating weight-loss peptides, insulin and the tiny fat droplets used to carry newer medicines.
- IMU Biosciences partnershipCustomer program · AnnouncedIMU Biosciences, a firm mapping immune systems across large populations, chose Waters cell-analysis hardware in June 2026; it has raised over $50M.
- Everlywell and LetsGetChecked at-home HPV programsCustomer programTelehealth partners signed in August and September 2026 to mail out the at-home screening kit; samples still route to a lab running the Waters test.
- Cost-savings and cross-selling programEcosystem · Ramping$200M of annual cost savings targeted by year three and $290M of added sales by year five; $75M of savings expected in 2026, called ahead of schedule.
- Rapid stability testingProduct · AnnouncedAn idea to point TA's heat-measuring instruments at biologic drug formulations; named as a growth project, mentioned once so far.
BD FACSDiscover A7Product
Cell analyzer launched September 2026, built to win back flow-cytometry customers BD had been losing.
Xevo CDMSProduct · Ramping
Launched October 2025 for characterising large molecules; Waters puts the market it opens at roughly $350M.
Cyclic IMS P20 and Xevo MRT P10Product · Ramping
Two molecule-weighing instruments unveiled at the 2026 ASMS conference, this year's additions to the Waters instrument line.
Wyatt light scattering (omniDAWN)Product line
Bought in 2023 for about $1.28B net; sizes molecules by the light they scatter, and was the first non-chromatography technique wired into Empower.
BioResolve and GTxResolve columnsProduct · Ramping
Columns launched in 2026 for separating weight-loss peptides, insulin and the tiny fat droplets used to carry newer medicines.
IMU Biosciences partnershipCustomer program · Announced
IMU Biosciences, a firm mapping immune systems across large populations, chose Waters cell-analysis hardware in June 2026; it has raised over $50M.
Everlywell and LetsGetChecked at-home HPV programsCustomer program
Telehealth partners signed in August and September 2026 to mail out the at-home screening kit; samples still route to a lab running the Waters test.
Cost-savings and cross-selling programEcosystem · Ramping
$200M of annual cost savings targeted by year three and $290M of added sales by year five; $75M of savings expected in 2026, called ahead of schedule.
Rapid stability testingProduct · Announced
An idea to point TA's heat-measuring instruments at biologic drug formulations; named as a growth project, mentioned once so far.