All right, great. Thank you, everybody, for joining me today. I'm Casey Woodring from the Life Science Tools and Diagnostics team. Welcome to our J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Pleased to be joined by Danaher's CEO, Rainer Blair. Rainer's going to go through the corporate presentation for Danaher, and then we'll do a Q&A session afterwards. Rainer, all you.
Thank you, Casey, and thanks to J.P. Morgan for having us this morning. Good day to everybody here in San Francisco, as well as those of you who are here on the webcast. Before I jump in, please have a look at our forward-looking statements advisory, as well as our GAAP reconciliation here. Take the time to peruse those at another time. Let's get started. Before I do so, let me quickly outline what I'd like to talk about today. You probably saw our press release in the sense that we anticipate fourth quarter 2025 results to be ahead of our expectations.
I'll talk about why we have differentiated positions in attractive areas of Biotechnology, Life Sciences, and Diagnostics, as well as how we are well positioned to generate sustainable long-term shareholder value through innovation, through execution, capital deployment, and of course, all driven by the Danaher Business System. So let me provide a little more color here than on the fourth quarter. As I said, we anticipate that the quarter will come in slightly ahead of our expectations. And we expect our Q4 core growth to be towards the high end of our low single-digit percentage guidance. And that's driven really across the portfolio, starting with bioprocessing consumables, which grew at the high end of high single digits, as well as equipment, notably growing at mid-single digits after three quarters of sequential orders growth. So we think that's notable.
We've also had good momentum across diagnostics with strength in the respiratory markets, as well as life sciences outperform, driven by improved instrument performance on the back of a little more strength in the pharma end market, including mid-single digit growth at Cepheid. So when you bring all that together for the full year, our 2025 adjusted EPS is expected to be towards the high end of our guidance, which was between $7.70 and $7.80. And of course, that also provides additional proof points here for our initial 2026 expectations, which we shared earlier, with core revenue growth being between 3% and 6%, adjusted operating profit margin expansion of over 100 basis points, as well as adjusted earnings per share growth of high single digits for 2026.
Solid execution here by the team in 2025 on the back of improving end markets, providing some momentum here and setting up the year nicely for 2026. So let's shift gears here and talk about Danaher a little bit. We're roughly a $25 billion company. We go to market with three operating segments: Biotechnology, Life Sciences, and Diagnostics. And those are comprised of over 15 operating companies, which are the leaders and the leading brands in their respective end markets, with great business models, large installed base with specs and consumables. So as we sit here today, we're a life science and technology and diagnostics innovator with a very attractive financial profile. Have a look here at the bottom left. Our gross margins are nearly 60%. Our operating margins are approaching 30%. Our operating cash flow is over $6 billion.
So that differentiated positioning with very, very strong end markets and business models also delivers a very attractive financial profile. So this is a powerful portfolio. And why is it powerful? Because we have high-quality businesses in these attractive end markets. And on the left, you see these attractive end markets, which are underpinned by important long-term secular growth drivers, which I'll talk about in a little bit more detail in just a second. But you see these end markets of pharma, biopharma, molecular diagnostics, specialty diagnostics, as well as clinical diagnostics, with just the right exposure in attractive applied markets as well. At the same time, our businesses are united by a common business model: razor- razor blade businesses that are on high-value, mission-critical applications that have a steady stream of consumables that are specced in off of a very, very large installed base.
In fact, at this point, we have about 80% recurring revenue in the portfolio. So when you bring together this end market positioning along with these differentiated business models and the power of the Danaher Business System, you bring lasting leverage to your growth and earnings trajectory, and that's where we're positioned. So very differentiated positioning in the marketplace with really differentiated financials. So now let's spend a couple of minutes on the topic of the secular growth drivers, which support our end markets. The global population continues to age. We'll have over 1.5 billion people over the age of 65 by 2050. That's two times what we have today. And as you all know, the healthcare intensity and the provisioning of healthcare for older people is much greater.
And as a result, you not only have the growth of the population, you have the growing healthcare intensity, which amplifies the demand for the products and services in healthcare. We see a shift in medicine to biologics. Over 20,000 biologics are in the pipeline currently, with 650 approved by the FDA. So you can see what's ahead. There's an enormous amount of opportunity still ahead of us, a decades-long opportunity. If you think of small molecules that have been around for over 100 years and you think about biologics that have been around for three decades now, we still have plenty of room for growth there. We see the proliferation of monoclonal antibodies, an incredibly important and effective therapy modality that continues to grow. In fact, it's been growing double digits since 2019, and we continue to see that growth here today.
The adoption of new technologies is also very important. If you think about molecular diagnostics, the molecular diagnostic market today is two and a half times what it was just in 2019 and continues to expand. It's such an effective means of diagnosing and identifying disease and many, many other things. And then lastly, science continues to advance. Life science research is bringing to the fore new therapy classes, such as cell and gene therapy, antibody-drug conjugates, bispecifics, multispecifics. All of this continues to drive not just innovation, but also our business. And so you can imagine we've dialed in our portfolio into these secular growth drivers as they are also represented and ultimately in our end markets. So important part of how we think about our strategy. So now let's have a look at our three franchises here.
I'll start with the bioprocessing franchise, which is by far the largest part of the Biotechnology Segment. Over $6 billion of revenue here. 80% of that comes from this important drug class, fast-growing drug class of monoclonal antibodies, and we're spec'd into over 90% of monoclonal antibodies that are being commercialized today. So we're a real powerhouse in that area, and you can see by the illustration here that we really are able to offer end-to-end solutions. So we have by far the widest portfolio in the market, but it's also important to note that we have the deepest, so certainly here you see protein-based monoclonal antibody type processes, but the same holds for nucleic acid-based processes, cell therapy, and so forth.
So also the deepest, along with the requisite consumables that are differentiated and the IT wrapper that allows our customers to port the important data into their respective systems. So we're competitively advantaged here as you think about the fourth quarter instrument growth that I talked about. We see this long-term growth of equipment coming our way as it relates to the reshoring of manufacturing here in the U.S., plus the fact that the market is growing at double digits. You can see how we're advantaged in playing that out. And we have over 200 FlexF actories, so full-line installations around the world, the only player that's able to pull that off. So we really like the fact and how well we are positioned here for high single-digit core revenue growth in 2026 and for the long term. So now let's move over to our life science franchise, $7.3 billion.
This is a differentiated portfolio of analytical instrument and life science consumables. We have strategically diversified the end markets in which we play here: pharma, biopharma, genomics, clinical, and again, attractive applied end markets are very important to this business. We have very attractive razor-blade business models here with over 60% of recurring revenue, with plenty of margin expansion opportunities ahead in this part of our business. And lastly, breakthrough innovation. I'll show you some of that in just a minute is what we do here. Every year you'll hear us talking about it. Super proud of the team protecting during the choppiness of the last several years in the marketplace. Our R&D investment and the launches that we've been doing have been highly effective in terms of accelerating proteomic and genomic research and accelerating new therapies to market.
So high single-digit long-term core revenue growth with the opportunity for further margin expansion here in our Life Science Segment. Now let's have a look at our Diagnostics Segment. This is a $10 billion scaled franchise that is dialed into the most attractive end markets in diagnostics. We have the best-in-class molecular diagnostics business with Cepheid. This is the best workflow, easiest, fastest time to market, right result every time, largest installed base, broadest by far testing menu in the world. And we expect that business over the long term to grow double digits. We have scaled specialty businesses that are each well over a billion dollars, like Leica Biosystems and anatomical pathology is pushing forward cancer diagnosis with digital capabilities, Radiometer, blood gas, so important in the acute care setting, saving lives every day. High single digit on each of these today, high single-digit core growth.
If we think about Beckman Coulter, we have a comprehensive portfolio here with strong footholds in the core lab. Already outside of China, this portfolio is growing at mid-single digits based on innovation and commercial execution. And as China normalizes, which we see happening here and also saw in the fourth quarter, we expect this portfolio to be a high single-digit growing forward. You can see why we're excited about this. Now let's talk a little bit about innovation. I've taken three of many examples here across the portfolio, and it shows you that our innovation is helping to solve some of healthcare's biggest challenges. Not innovation for innovation's sake, but really targeted at solving some of the vexing issues across our industry. If we start on the left with SCIEX, you can see there we're accelerating drug discovery. We've just launched the ZenoTOF 7600 mass spectrometer.
This mass spec really combines the power of two mass spectrometers into one in the sense that it's a high-resolution with a strong dynamic range solution that allows you to not only identify compounds such as proteins, but it also allows you to quantify them, and doing that at high-resolution capability with 30 times the sensitivity is unique in the marketplace. We've just launched that here in the last couple of quarters, and that is going extremely well. Very pleased, and that's going to help researchers not only define disease pathways more quickly, but to get those drugs to market more quickly as well. In Cytiva, it was hard to pick an innovation because we launched 20 new products in the last 12 months, and so we've picked this one here, increasing biologics manufacturing yields. Our new Xcellerex X-platform is out in the market.
It brings over three times more oxygen mass transfer to the cells. That makes those cells more productive. It helps them live longer. And what that does is it improves your manufacturing yields and it reduces your manufacturing costs. Very important next-generation bioreactor line that is just hitting the market now. We're very excited about that. And then, of course, improving patient diagnoses. The DxI 9000 immunoassay analyzer is over 100x, two orders of magnitude more sensitive than traditional immunoassay analyzers. That opens up a whole new world of diseases that you can now diagnose in a more standard hospital setting. This is incredibly important for many diseases, but specifically Alzheimer's disease, which I will talk about in just a minute. But this instrument has the capability to diagnose early-stage Alzheimer's disease off of a blood draw.
Many of you will know that the current standard of care for Alzheimer's diagnosis is either a PET scan or a spinal tap, which typically is far more expensive and tends to be done later in the disease progression, and most of the therapeutics that are available today are best applied early in the disease progression, and so this really changes the game and the future availability of Alzheimer's treatment to patients around the world. I think we all know somebody who might be suffering from this disease. This is something that we as a society have to solve for, and as Danaher, we're at the forefront of that, 100x more sensitive, bringing diagnostics for the most vexing diseases right to the hospital off of a blood draw, so this is good for patients. This is good for payers.
This is good for providers, but it's also good for Danaher. These innovations have increased our new product revenue by 25% just over the last year. So now let's take a step back from our portfolio for a minute. I was just inside the individual segments talking to you about some of the innovations there. And now I'd like to talk to you about the power across the portfolio. So let's take a step back and talk about neurodegenerative diseases, their detection, and their treatment. And on the left side, you see how Danaher with Abcam, Cepheid, and Cytiva helps define the disease pathway, identify, and validate the biomarkers. Absolutely critical if you're thinking about drug development. Why is that critical? Well, at least in two ways. One, having the biomarkers validated allows clinicians and pharma companies to define the right endpoints during clinical trials.
And at the same time, for diagnostic companies such as Beckman Coulter, it allows us to develop the diagnostic in the form of a companion diagnostic with the right biomarkers as well. And we have some examples here. We have the first automated high-throughput p-Tau, research-use-only immunoassay test on the market. You can get this test today in a research-use-only setting off of a blood draw to see if you're a candidate for early-stage Alzheimer's treatment. And at the same time, as I've talked about, we're able to scale up quality and lower-cost biomanufacturing of monoclonal antibodies because the indicated treatment for Alzheimer's disease today is based on monoclonal antibodies. And it shows you the kind of potential as the standard of care continues to change in this direction that we're talking about here, uniquely across our portfolio.
We're working very closely together with our pharma partners, who also like the fact that we don't compete against them. We're essentially a tools provider to them to help solve some of these most vexing problems in disease treatment. So I talked about the differentiated financials, the great end markets, the differentiated business models, and of course, that generates a lot of cash flow. So how do we think about capital allocation? Well, our bias in capital allocation is towards M&A, where we have a tested, tried, and true means across three dimensions to drive how we think about that M&A. First, we analyze the market, and you know what we're looking for. We're looking for secular growth drivers that we can believe in, not for a couple of years, but for the long term. Two, we look for companies.
We're thoughtful about the type of companies that we're thinking about. We like them to be leaders in their markets, of course, but also to have defensible positions that are future-oriented and, importantly, to have value reserves, whether that's our ability to accelerate growth through innovation and commercial execution, whether it's our ability to run the Danaher Business System playbook to drive higher productivity, to be able to reinvest that in the business once again in order to be able to accelerate growth and share gain, and then lastly, and importantly, the financial model has to work, all three of those dimensions have to be on green, so to speak, have to work in order for us to execute on our acquisition strategy, and we focus on the return on invested capital for the long term.
So we're not acquiring companies to fill an EPS hole for a year or two. We are investing for the long term. Return on invested capital is important to us in the assets that we acquire, and then we layer on top of each other these assets in order to ensure that we have really a potentiation of the growth of the earnings over time. So lots of cash flow. You see on the right here our balance sheet. We're well positioned here with the two, have a lot of optionality to deploy capital in a thoughtful means in order to drive growth, earnings, and strengthening our positioning in the marketplace.
So I'm asked all the time, "So Rainer, great end markets, great franchises, innovation is working, but how do you run the businesses?" And at Danaher, foundational to how we run the business, how we execute, is the Danaher Business System. It is our competitive advantage. It differentiates us. It's on the basis of our core values that DBS is our system of continuous improvement and the culture, importantly, the culture that makes it work. And it's really much more than a collection of processes or tools. It's what has allowed us to execute at scale for over 40 years. So let's put it all together. On the left, you see how we're thinking about growth. We're coming out of the market reset here post the pandemic. We see growth improving here. We've talked about our initial thoughts between 3% and 6% core growth.
And we see ourselves in a long-term improving end market situation and are convinced that we have the power to grow high single digits here in the long term. And so that ports over then into our earnings algorithm, which you see on the right, high single-digit growth with really, really strong incrementals of 35%-40%. You've seen our cash generation efficiency with our strong free cash flow conversion. And of course, we bring that right back to acquisitions, which then ultimately drives double-digit plus earnings per share growth. So as we said, we expect this gradual improvement towards high single-digit long-term core revenue growth to continue in the fourth quarter, just gives us another data point along that journey. So in summary then, this is what you've heard. We have differentiated positions in the attractive areas of Biotechnology, Life Sciences, and Diagnostics.
You saw some of the innovations that help customers improve quality and yields, reduce costs, bring new therapies and diagnostics to the market much more efficiently. And we're very well positioned to generate sustainable long-term shareholder value driven by the Danaher Business System. So thank you very much, and I look forward to our Q&A. Thank you.
All right. Great. Thanks, Rainer, for that. Maybe taking a step back before we dig into the pre-announcement a little bit. So 2025 was a volatile year for the industry, right, marked by a number of policy-driven disruptions. When you think about the end markets that Danaher plays in, what's your conviction in the underlying health of each of those moving forward and the confidence level that the growth drivers that underpin those long-term targets for each of your businesses remain intact?
We were just talking about that. I mean, as we look at the secular growth drivers, really, those have not changed. In fact, if anything, they have strengthened. You saw the discussion of aging populations. The biologics drug pipeline is chock-full. There are many unsolved problems as it relates to the disease states that we want to get after. I mentioned Alzheimer's. There are so many other disease states that are out there for us to do, and society is willing to invest in those. We've seen a gradual improvement here in the pharma end markets as risks have been retired, whether it's most favored nation, understanding the tariff situation, the question on reshoring. All of these headline risks have been either retired or essentially being phased out. That all lends itself to really a more positive momentum. We're seeing biotech funding improving here.
The biotech M&A market is working again, so these are all indicators that the market is starting to find its legs again, and we think we're well positioned in that context for 2026 and beyond.
Yeah. I guess along those lines, right, the tools recovery has been pushed out for several years now in a row. Like you said, there seems to be reason to be optimistic that 2026 could finally be the year where the industry really begins to see some normalization. How are you thinking about the near-term hurdles that we still need to clear as an industry before we get back to a more normalized environment?
I mean, I think there's a couple of them. In each one of them, I would say we see things improving. Like I said, if we think about the pharma end market, that's important. Some of these headline risks are being retired. Every day, even as we're at the conference, we see more agreements being made with the administration around MFN, reducing tariffs, improving pricing, agreeing to reshoring. These are all very important. As we think about China and the diagnostics business, here we see the volume-based procurement and some of the reimbursement headwinds that we have perceived. We're moving out of those and beyond those. As an example, in the fourth quarter, our China diagnostics business was just down low single digits. That's very much improved from what it was just a couple of quarters back, and we expect that to continue to normalize.
So we see that as a very positive point as well. And then lastly, as we think about the life science end markets, here we also are starting to see stabilization in the biotech market and to a lesser degree, but still some stability in academic and government end markets as well.
And then earlier in 2025, you gave color on 2026 earlier than usual, pointing the street to 3%-6% top-line growth. It seems like the street is anchoring towards the lower end of that right now. I guess what specifically would you call out as upside drivers to 2026 numbers? And do you expect to exit the year kind of in a more normalized environment as we head into 2027? I know it's a little early to.
That's right. I mean, we think that the fourth quarter was a good quarter. It was a good quarter in terms of seeing a little bit of end market recovery and the continued reduction of these risks. We also executed well. So we think that's important, and as we look forward to 2026, some of the levers that would take you from the lower end of that 3%-6% that we provided would be the life science markets, for instance, right? We would expect to see not just stability there, but more growth coming out of certainly the pharma end market, academic, and government, and the potential is there, but we think at this point we want to continue. We want to be able to see that. Another thing I would mention is we saw mid-single digit growth in bioprocessing equipment.
That's important after three quarters of sequential orders growth. That's an important data point. We want to see more data points of that nature as well. But of course, a more dynamic bioprocessing equipment environment, which we think would be the beginning of a longer-term trend, a years-long trend of getting after some capacity shortages, as well as the reshoring that we see and expect to take its path. That I think would be helpful, and then, as I said, as we get past some of the headwinds there in China in terms of the reimbursement and volume-based procurement changes, all that would contribute some upside.
That's helpful. Yeah. Let's dig into the pre-announcement a little bit. So core revenue growth projected to be at the high end of the low single digit guidance range you gave, beat expectations. Can you just unpack what you saw throughout the quarter across the business lines, how conditions played out relative to 3Q?
Okay. Well, let's start with bioprocessing. Our consumables growth there at the high end of high single digits was a little bit better than expected. Actually had a harder comp in the prior year. So that shows high activity levels here in what is a normalized demand environment for consumables. And now we're starting to see this growth in biopharma bioprocessing equipment. I think that's an important data point. We're starting to see that the sequential orders growth is now pushing the business into positive growth territory in terms of sales. We'd like to see that continue. One data point, a trend does not make, but it's certainly an encouraging one because we haven't seen that in a while. And I think there's two things going on there.
The first thing is that because equipment investment has been muted for some time, despite a relatively high activity level in consumables, so showing that the activity level in production is actually very high, it's time to start debottlenecking plants out there to make up for that period where investment was more muted. I think that's one driver, and we certainly see that in our funnels, and secondly, we're starting to see more activity around the reshoring question. Some of the shorter-term actions there are the debottlenecking of existing lines, adding new lines in existing facilities, and there are discussions also about the greenfield investment, so that's all very encouraging. We expect to see that longer term, and that's why I say in this area, we expect this to be a years-long sort of constructive and positive growth vector going forward.
And then lastly, I would say in China, we saw normalization there in the fourth quarter. Like I said, diagnostics was only down low single digits. That's an indicator coming from quarters where we were down as much as 20% with the volume-based procurement. That's an indicator that we're starting to move past those kind of headwinds. You'll recall for 2026, we've defined what we think any tail risk could be there of $75 million-$100 million. And we think that's the appropriate way to think of it based on what we're seeing today. And then the other markets in China, this life science market is robust. The biotech market in China has come to life again with new innovations. So me-t oo, me-b etter, but also new to the world innovation that multinational companies are now licensing. Other companies are going to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
So what that shows you now is that money is flowing back into the biotech market through various monetization alternatives, and that is increasing the demand for our products and services there. So all encouraging signs that we see the end markets improving.
Yeah. Maybe just to follow up on the bioprocessing equipment piece, obviously a focal point for investor focus here. Maybe just any more color you can give on the order book, sequential growth heading into 2026 from 3Q? And then how should we think about pharma reshoring and when we can expect kind of orders to start flowing through and potential upside opportunity, maybe not in 26, but further out?
So let's start with the sequential order. So three quarters of sequential order growth. That's important. That sequential order growth ultimately is not yet at what we would call a normalized growth rate, but what we see is a trend towards that normalized growth rate. So that's the first point. The second point is, again, there are sort of two forces driving that growth rate. One is the need to make up for capacity in the shorter term because of the underinvestment of perhaps prior quarters or even years. The second one is now the reshoring effect, where that is also on a continuum of projects. Then the reshoring, what we see is the shorter-term projects that are easier to do. So debottlenecking an existing line, building a new line in an existing facility, so-called brownfield investments is what we're seeing more of in the funnel and in the discussions.
And then the greenfields, those are further out. And that's why I say this is something that could take several years, sort of in a positive sense, in that we are looking at a secular growth driver here that could last for several years in a very positive way. And I think Danaher is uniquely positioned with our portfolio. You saw the illustration that I showed earlier with the breadth and the depth of our portfolio, not just as it relates to the equipment, but of course the consumables that that pulls through, and as I mentioned, the digital layer that's so important to tie into our customers. So we have a unique positioning here. We view this as potential building momentum here. Like I said, we want to see more than one quarter data point, but we're encouraged.
And maybe touching on life sciences, you highlighted mid-single digit growth in SCIEX. Curious to hear about what drove the strength there. I know that you had baked in some cushion for the government shutdown in 4Q. Any sort of dynamics around budget flush? And then just kind of stepping back, as you think about life sciences into 2026, you're calling for flat growth. There's a bunch of different businesses within life science. If you can give any color on expectations for Aldevron and some of these other companies within that.
So life sciences in the fourth quarter sort of continued the dynamic that we saw also in the third quarter, where we saw an improved pharma market. So the pharma recovery, in line with some of the headline risks being retired, is starting to take shape. And that's why our instrument businesses are really what led this beat. And that starts with SCIEX. You saw the ZenoTOF innovation that I showed you there. That is taking share in its market. And these are solutions that are in discovery and development. So not related with production, but in discovery and development, which is a good sign that investment is occurring upstream in research and development. So that's an important point to make, and we're well positioned there. And that is encouraging.
As it relates to geography, we did see a little bit of a budget flush in the fourth quarter, more so in Europe actually than in the U.S., but a budget flush nonetheless, which once again we haven't seen in a number of years. So that is also encouraging. And so as we think about 2026, we believe that this environment has to continue to improve. We're encouraged that it will. Academic and government continues to be a bit of a growth drag. We saw in the fourth quarter that that market surprisingly was stable despite the government shutdown. But nonetheless, we want to see university funding through extramural funding and the other funding mechanisms that exist to continue to stabilize and turn to growth. Now, as it relates to our other businesses, as you know, Aldevron, IDT, these businesses have a fair amount of academic exposure as well.
We expect those to turn during the course of 2026 into positive territory after having digested some of the comp issues that we saw in prior quarters. So encouraged, but prudent around where we see life sciences going. We'd like to see more data points, especially out of academic and government in that area.
With the time we have left, I just want to touch on capital allocation, right? You mentioned it in your presentation. Following some of the recent larger deals in the space, investor focus has been on what is Danaher going to buy next and when. You guys have been pretty quiet on that front the last couple of years. So maybe talk a little bit about how you're thinking about M&A. Which segment do you see as having the most inorganic opportunities that you see in the market? What size deal would be an ideal acquisition target? How are you thinking about public versus privates? And any sort of information you can give us.
Well, as I demonstrated earlier, the kind of cash flow and balance sheet positioning that we have. So we're well positioned, and we continue to cultivate targets as much as we ever have. And our priority in capital allocation remains M&A. So that said, we maintain our discipline. You heard me talk about the three dimensions that have to fall in place. And when those fall in place, that's when we act. And I would tell you that the environment has become a little more constructive in the sense that some of the headline risks have stabilized and are heading in the right direction. We see some choppiness in valuations, which brings those in a little bit more and makes the valuations perhaps a little bit more reasonable. We've seen a slight reduction in interest rates, and all those things I would say are constructive to M&A.
And we take note of that. And like I said, when we have the intersection of our three dimensions, that's when we'll act.
Okay. Maybe circling back to diagnostics quickly, just can you unpack the performance maybe between respiratory and non-respiratory in diagnostics in 4Q? And then you kind of talked a little bit about China. So maybe just on the performance of 4Q.
Sure. So we had broad strength across the diagnostics portfolio in the fourth quarter. Just as an example, outside of China, our portfolio grew mid-single digits at something like the eighth or ninth quarter in a row. We're very proud of the work that's being done at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics with the innovations going into play. And again, outside of China, they're growing in the mid-single digits already. Patient volumes are strong. We don't see any reduction there. So we're very pleased with what we saw in, if you will, our clinical diagnostics. And if we think of point of care, so Cepheid in particular, we saw strength in respiratory. The flu season is quite strong, and we saw that in the fourth quarter.
Then as it relates to the non-respiratory business there, we continued to see the kind of strength that we have seen throughout 2025 and prior to that. The diagnostics portfolio, beyond the topic of China, is performing better than we anticipated.
Okay. Maybe last question here as we wrap up, Rainer. What are you most excited for for 2026 for Danaher?
I mean, we're going to be accelerating our growth in 2026. We've talked about that. That's evident in our initial guide and our additional thoughts around guidance. We've taken the necessary steps, controlling what we can control to ensure that even at the low end of that range, we can deliver high single-digit earnings growth, adjusted earnings growth, along with over 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion. We're excited about that. We've worked hard for it, and we're planning on delivering it.
All right. We'll leave it at that. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Thank you, Rainer, and the Danaher team. Enjoy the rest of the conference, everybody.