−6.0%
since Oct 8
The idea
I believe the economy is shifting toward paying for discovery itself, not just knowledge, and AI is accelerating how many attempts at breakthroughs get made across drugs, materials, and chips. Rather than guess which lab wins, I own the tools that get paid regardless: instrument makers, simulation and AI-for-science software, DNA reading and writing, and lab automation. It's spread across many names with no single-stock bets, a 9% cash cushion for weakness, and built to be held for years. I'd rethink it if the economy clearly stopped rewarding discovery over routine knowledge work.
What it owns
- These companies supply the core instruments, consumables and services that labs worldwide depend on for research and diagnostics, collecting revenue on nearly every discovery attempt regardless of which ones succeed. · Thermo Fisher ScientificIt is the largest seller of instruments, consumables and services to labs worldwide, so it collects revenue on nearly every discovery attempt regardless of who succeeds., DanaherIt owns life-science and diagnostics businesses that get paid as biology research and drug production scale up, while regularly adding to its toolkit through acquisitions., Agilent TechnologiesIt supplies the chromatography, spectroscopy and lab instruments that chemistry and biology labs run daily, plus the recurring consumables and services those instruments pull through., Waters CorporationIt dominates liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, the core tools for determining what molecules actually are, with high-margin recurring revenue from its installed base., BrukerIt sells the heavy scientific instruments, NMR, mass spec and advanced microscopy, that frontier research cannot do without., RevvityIt sells the reagents, instruments and software that life-science labs and diagnostics providers consume as they work., Mettler-ToledoIt makes the balances and precision measurement equipment that sit in essentially every lab and quality-control line on earth.34%
- These companies sell software that lets scientists and engineers test ideas on computers before building them physically, displacing some trial-and-error work and becoming essential to drug design, chip design and regulatory approval. · SchrodingerIt sells physics-based simulation software that lets drug hunters test molecules on a computer before making them, representing computational drug design at its purest form., Cadence Design SystemsIt is the other half of the chip-design software duopoly and is pushing simulation-first approaches into drug discovery and systems design., SynopsysIt sells the software without which no modern chip gets designed, and holds roughly half of the chip-design software market., CertaraIt sells biosimulation software that models how drugs behave in the body, letting companies and regulators replace some human and animal testing with computation.19%
- These companies provide the tools and platforms that let researchers read, write and study biology at scale, from sequencing DNA to synthesizing genes to analyzing single cells. · IlluminaIt makes the machines that read DNA, the raw data layer of biological discovery, and gets paid per run on a large installed base., Twist BioscienceIt writes DNA to order on silicon chips, so every attempt to engineer biology can start with cheap synthetic genes rather than isolating them from nature., 10x GenomicsIt sells the tools that let researchers study biology one cell at a time, a level of resolution the discovery economy increasingly demands., Ginkgo BioworksIt runs a platform for engineering organisms, getting paid as companies outsource their biology research attempts rather than building labs themselves., Pacific BiosciencesIt reads long stretches of DNA accurately, catching what short-read sequencing misses, and gets paid for that completeness in research.16%
- These companies make the test, measurement and sensing equipment that engineers and scientists use to develop new electronics, materials, quantum systems and industrial processes. · Keysight TechnologiesIt makes the test and measurement equipment engineers use to develop new electronics, wireless systems and quantum hardware, getting paid on every attempt to push physical technology forward., Teledyne TechnologiesIt makes the sensors, cameras and instruments that let scientists and engineers measure what they could not see before, from ocean floors to space., FortiveIt sells precision instruments and workflow software that industrial and healthcare operations depend on, the applied end of the measurement toolkit.13%
- These companies automate the handling, testing and management of samples and components, getting paid as experiment volumes and production scale increase. · AzentaIt stores, moves and manages the biological samples that discovery work generates, so more experiments means more business for its automated sample management platform., TeradyneIt tests chips before they ship and sells collaborative robots that automate lab and factory work, two ways of getting paid as attempt volume rises.9%
- Cash9%