The idea
I believe the economy is shifting from paying for known knowledge to paying for discovery itself, and AI is multiplying the number of attempts being made. Rather than guess which breakthrough wins, I own the tools used in every attempt: lab instruments and automation, AI-for-science and simulation software, and the equipment for reading and writing biology. I keep 9% in cash for weakness and I am holding this for years, not quarters, with no single company making up an outsized share.
What will be bought
- The take bets that global research and biopharma spending keeps growing and that dominant toolmakers hold their market share as discovery attempts scale. · 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 a diversified portfolio of life-science and diagnostics businesses that get paid as biology research and drug production scale up, and it keeps expanding its toolkit through acquisitions., Agilent TechnologiesIt supplies chromatography, spectroscopy and lab instruments that chemistry and biology labs run daily, plus the recurring consumables and services those machines pull through., Waters CorporationIt dominates liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, the core tools for figuring out what a molecule actually is, with high-margin recurring revenue from its installed base., BrukerIt sells the heavy scientific instruments like NMR, mass spectrometry and advanced microscopy that frontier research cannot do without., Mettler-ToledoIt makes the balances and precision measurement gear that sit in essentially every lab and quality-control line globally, since every experiment starts with weighing something exactly., RevvityIt sells the reagents, instruments and software that life-science labs and diagnostics providers consume as they work through their daily discovery volume.34%
- The take assumes that computational approaches displace more wet-lab trial and error, and that the leading platforms in drug design and chip design keep their positions. · SchrodingerIt sells physics-based simulation software that lets drug hunters test molecules on a computer before making them, the discovery economy in its purest form., SynopsysIt sells the software without which no modern chip gets designed, and chips are where a huge share of new discovery attempts now happen., Cadence Design SystemsIt is one half of the chip-design software duopoly and is pushing simulation-first approaches into drug discovery and systems design alongside its core semiconductor work., CertaraIt sells biosimulation software that models how drugs behave in the body, letting companies and regulators replace some animal testing with computation.19%
- The take bets that the cost and speed of reading and writing biology keeps improving, and that researchers adopt newer methods as they become practical and affordable. · 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 instead of expensive wet synthesis., 10x GenomicsIt sells the tools that let researchers study biology one cell at a time, a resolution level the discovery economy increasingly demands., Pacific BiosciencesIt reads long stretches of DNA accurately, catching variants and structural details that short-read sequencing misses, making it valuable for discovery research where completeness matters more than throughput., Ginkgo BioworksIt runs a platform for engineering organisms, getting paid as companies outsource their biology R&D attempts rather than building internal labs.16%
- The take needs R&D spending in electronics, communications, and physical measurement to keep rising as engineers and scientists push technology forward. · Keysight TechnologiesIt makes the test and measurement gear that engineers use to develop new electronics, wireless systems and quantum hardware, getting paid on every forward-pushing attempt., Teledyne TechnologiesIt makes the sensors, cameras and instruments that let scientists and engineers see and measure phenomena they could not before, from ocean floors to orbit., FortiveIt sells precision instruments and workflow software that industrial and healthcare operations depend on, the applied end of the measurement toolkit.13%
- The take assumes that sample volumes and chip production keep growing, and that automation adoption spreads across research and manufacturing to handle rising attempt volume. · AzentaIt stores, moves and manages the biological samples that discovery work generates, so more experiments means more volume through its automated systems., 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%