BUSINESS AREA

Labtech Business Area

The Labtech business area provides products, solutions and services in fields such as diagnostics, biomedical research and laboratory analysis. The business area consists of two business units: Biomedical and Research and Diagnostics. The most important customer groups are hospital laboratories, academic research and pharmaceutical companies, mainly in the Nordic region and increasingly in the rest of Europe.

The business area offers products and solutions, including equipment, consumables and reagents, used to diagnose diseases and conduct research. Labtech also provides training and technical service to facilitate effective use of the equipment. Approximately 80 percent of sales in 2023 originated from procurements and long-term contracts associated with installed instruments.
AddLife offers suppliers a strong commercial organisation with a local presence in 30 European countries. As a distributor, Labtech can swiftly adapt to market changes and offer tailored solutions to meet customer needs. New distribution agreements for innovative products have been established in multiple countries, and are expected to provide additional potential for future growth. Profitability remained robust in 2023 exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Organic growth, excluding COVID-19 related sales and exchange rate fluctuations, totalled 10 percent for full-year 2023. COVID-19-related sales have stopped and are now recognised as SEK 0 million (760).

Market trend 2023
As the pandemic receded, the remaining aspects of the business resumed, with a surge in demand for diagnostics, research and drug development. Funding within government-backed and academic research budgets remained steady, accompanied by high levels of activity. The uncertainty about future research funding in some countries during the year was offset by research efforts in other countries, along with strong demand for development of new therapies in both the pharmaceutical industry and biomedicine.
Labtech sales mainly focus on instruments with recurring revenues from consumables, providing long-term stability in demand. Although some markets showed caution regarding major investments, AddLife's operations were largely unaffected since its portfolio primarily consists of instruments and equipment that do not require substantial investments.
Several of the global manufacturing companies are undergoing changes in both organisation and market strategy, presenting opportunities for the subsidiaries to adopt new products and increase their market shares. Demand increased for traditional laboratory reagents along with products related to gene sequencing, cell therapy, cancer immunology and instrumentation. Labtech is constantly upgrading its product portfolio towards more advanced products and in the field of gene sequencing, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) was launched in both Italy and Scandinavia during the year. Sales of proprietary advanced instruments showed robust growth in the US, Europe and China.
During the year AddLife identified prioritised growth segments in Labtech. Within the Diagnostics business unit, the company has identified microbiology, molecular diagnostics and genetic testing as profitable growth segments. Within the Biomedical and Research business unit, AddLife has identified molecular biology and advanced instruments for laboratory analysis as growth segments. The common denominator for the prioritised segments is that while the subsidiaries already hold a solid position and possess considerable expertise in these segments, they currently account for a only small proportion of sales (5 percent or less). Additionally, they exhibit stronger growth compared to the broader diagnostics market, with expected margins in most cases exceeding 12 percent. Consequently, an increased presence in these segments will improve both the growth potential and profitability of the Labtech business area.

 
LABTECH’S PRODUCT SEGMENTS 

	BIOMEDICAL AND RESEARCH	DIAGNOSTICS
	Advanced instruments Plastic consumables General lab Cell biology Reagents	Microbiology Molecular/genetics Clinical chemistry Immunology Hematology Cytology and pathology Point of Care