On Jul. 14, 2025, Lab equipment maker Waters Corp said it will buy a bioscience and diagnostics unit spun off from medtech provider Becton Dickinson in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $17.5 billion, expanding its scale in clinical and diagnostic applications.

Becton Dickinson, which had been underperforming in recent months and was targeted by activists, will exit a tariff-sensitive segment of diagnostics and biosciences while doubling down on core medtech, where it may have greater pricing power and a stronger domestic manufacturing base. The unit makes products used to detect infectious diseases and cancers.

Becton shares have fallen 28% since then on manufacturing issues and on tariffs announced in April by U.S. President Donald Trump. The setbacks forced the company to lower its annual guidance in May, negatively affecting its valuation.

Waters outmaneuvered larger rivals by using a tax-efficient Reverse Morris Trust structure—a stock-based transaction only viable for buyers of similar size, a person close to the transaction said. While Thermo Fisher and Agilent Technologies are leaders in the sector, their size makes them too large to use a similar structure.

The acquisition gives Waters, a provider of analytical technologies serving life sciences and diagnostics markets, greater scale. The company said it will double its total addressable market to about $40  billion, with a 5–7% annual growth rate, which analysts received well.