Bruker: Mass Spectrometry Portfolio Quality

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If we return to the high-end research side, considering competition and available technologies, we know Thermo has the Orbitrap technology, which competes with Bruker. Could you help us understand the competitive landscape in high-end mass spectrometry? What are the similarities and differences between Thermo and Bruker? Where is each more applicable, and how do you see market share evolving over the next few years?

The TIMS, or trapped ion mobility spectrometry, is an additional separation device placed before a QTOF or OTOF instrument, providing more separation after chromatography. Bruker leapfrogged over Thermo, capturing a large market share. Thermo, not to be outdone, invested in research and development and introduced a more powerful version of the Orbitrap called the Astral, which is now regaining some of the market share they previously held, taking sales from the TIMS instruments.

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If we return to the high-end research side, considering competition and available technologies, we know Thermo has the Orbitrap technology, which competes with Bruker. Could you help us understand the competitive landscape in high-end mass spectrometry? What are the similarities and differences between Thermo and Bruker? Where is each more applicable, and how do you see market share evolving over the next few years?

Buyers of these instruments evaluate them based on cost and performance, with prices close to or slightly over a million US dollars. The key metric is how many proteins can be identified in a sample. When the TIMS instrument was introduced, it set a benchmark of about 5,000 proteins, a significant achievement that the original Orbitraps couldn't match. Researchers focused on biomarker and protein discovery preferred instruments that could detect more proteins, leading them to purchase TIMS, although some remained loyal to Thermo or Waters, despite Waters' technology lagging behind both Orbitrap and TIMS.

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Does Bruker try to compete on price when they encounter this new competitive dynamic? Do they start reducing the price on the timsTOF?

I think all manufacturers recognize that there are certain funding limits that funding bodies don't exceed, probably around $450,000 to $500,000 is one level, and you could potentially go up to a million. However, I don't think a new TIMS instrument or a new Orbitrap instrument would be launched at $2 million because the likelihood of obtaining that level of grant is very low, and that's not the market space they want to be in. You could probably push it to $1.2 to $1.5 million if it's configured with many high-end options.

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