Picks and Shovels of Cures
jackie luo@jackie
−4.0%
since Sep 30
The idea
I believe medical innovation is entering a long boom, so instead of guessing which cure or drug wins, I own the picks and shovels: lab and bioprocessing equipment makers, sequencing and genomics toolmakers, contract research firms running the trials, and the data and compute backbone behind it all. A smaller slice sits in AI drug discovery companies as an accelerant, sized so no single one can hurt the take. I'm holding cash to add on weak stretches and plan to hold this for years, only reconsidering if the underlying innovation thesis itself stops playing out.
What it owns
- These companies sell the instruments and manufacturing gear every drug developer needs, so they get paid no matter whose cure wins. · DanaherIt makes the filters, media, and systems drugmakers need to manufacture biologic medicines at scale, earning more with each approved cure moving into production runs., Thermo Fisher ScientificNearly every lab chasing cures buys instruments, reagents, and bioprocessing gear from it, making it the largest toll booth in the take as long as overall spending on drug research keeps growing., Agilent TechnologiesIt sells the analysis instruments labs use to measure and validate drug candidates, so its growth tracks research spending across the industry., RepligenIt makes the consumable parts inside biologics production lines, earning per batch rather than per breakthrough and needing biologic and cell-therapy manufacturing to keep expanding., Waters CorporationEvery new treatment has to prove purity and consistency through its testing instruments, earning more as more cures reach trials and shelves., West Pharmaceutical ServicesIt makes the stoppers and delivery components nearly all modern injectables ship in, making it a bet that the count of injectable medicines keeps climbing.34%
- AI models that shrink the years between finding a target and testing a drug are the accelerant behind the whole innovation wave. · Tempus AIIt turns patient data into the training ground for AI-driven medicine, the accelerant piece of the take, needing its data business to keep signing pharma customers., Recursion PharmaceuticalsIt is a direct bet on AI compressing the path from target to trial at industrial scale, needing its platform to keep producing real clinical candidates through the decade., SchrodingerIts software simulates molecules before anyone synthesizes them, getting paid by many drugmakers rather than betting on one drug as long as computational design keeps taking share of early discovery., CertaraIts software simulates trials and dosing so drugmakers can skip some expensive real-world steps, earning more simulation work as more drugs enter development., AbsciIt uses generative AI to design antibodies from scratch, one of the more speculative ways the innovation wave could show up, needing partnership deals with drugmakers to validate the approach.18%
- Drug discovery is becoming a computing problem, and these companies supply the chips, software, and clinical data it runs on. · NVIDIAThe AI side of drug discovery runs on its chips, making it the compute toll booth under the accelerant layer as long as biology keeps becoming a computational problem., Veeva SystemsNearly every drug company runs its clinical, regulatory, and commercial work on its software, earning more seats and modules as more medicines move through the pipeline., IQVIA HoldingsIt holds the largest trove of clinical and prescription data and runs trials on top of it, staying right as drugmakers pay to design, run, and prove a decade of medical innovation.14%
- Every new treatment has to pass trials, and these firms run them for hire, earning fees as pipelines grow. · Icon plcIt runs late-stage trials worldwide for drugmakers who outsource them, with a bigger wave of candidates creating a bigger trial backlog., Charles River LaboratoriesBefore any cure reaches humans, most of the safety work runs through it as the earliest toll booth in the pipeline, working as long as the number of drug candidates entering preclinical testing keeps rising., Medpace HoldingsIt runs trials for the small biotechs where much of the cure-hunting happens, rising and falling with biotech funding as companies need money to run trials.14%
- Reading DNA cheaply is the raw input for gene therapies and precision medicine, and these firms make the machines that do it. · IlluminaIts sequencers are how researchers read the biology behind expected cures, with a wave of innovation driving more sequencing volume as long as it holds its lead as the default platform., QiagenIts kits prepare samples before they get sequenced or tested, a quiet toll on nearly every genomics workflow that stays right as testing and sequencing volumes grow., 10x GenomicsIt sells the tools for reading biology one cell at a time, the kind of resolution new treatments increasingly demand, working if single-cell analysis becomes routine in drug research.13%
- Cash7%