The last year was one of extraordinary challenges – for people around the world as well as for QIAGEN. Amid a global health crisis and the decision for our company to remain independent, QIAGEN’s teams stepped up with passion – and compassion – to help save lives and ensure our future success as a top global provider of molecular testing solutions.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, we demonstrated to our customers, our shareholders and ourselves the value of our commitment to making improvements in life possible. We are proud of the tireless efforts of QIAGENers across the company in making lifesaving contributions to science and healthcare at this difficult time.

As a critical supplier during the pandemic, our teams worked around the clock to develop new solutions and ramp up manufacturing of key products. Our field service associates continued to meet with customers in hospitals and laboratories with the ambition to leave no one behind. And in our offices around the world, dedicated staff and COVID-testing volunteers have worked steadfastly to make our work environment safe. I would like to pay special tribute to the many QIAGENers affected personally by the virus but who made every effort to return to work as soon as possible and play their part in this tremendous effort to tackle the pandemic. Today, we continue to foster this agility, innovation and empowering spirit with solutions that are paving the way for our long-term growth – now and beyond the pandemic.

Indeed, QIAGEN is COVID-relevant but not COVID-dependent. This pandemic has proven the crucial importance of molecular testing in the research and healthcare value chains. And this has put QIAGEN more than ever before at the center of the revolution in understanding the building blocks of life – DNA, RNA and proteins – leading the way to new benefits and better outcomes for patients and clinicians in the years to come.

To that end, we are training our focus purposefully on the five Pillars of Growth – our largest and most attractive growth opportunities. These include sample technologies, our new digital PCR portfolio, syndromic testing, our multiplex PCR diagnostics platform, and solutions for immune response monitoring. These are, of course, supported by our continued core business to provide the full range of Sample to Insight solutions.

Equally as important as our commercial success, I value the past year as a medical success. Our focus is on the real heroes – our customers – many of whom have been working on the front lines of the pandemic. We listened to their needs and pulled out all the stops to ensure our products helped them do their jobs successfully. We are truly grateful for their confidence in us and for the privilege to serve them, now and in the future.

At QIAGEN, we are also transforming our corporate culture to instill a business mindset in every QIAGENer, regardless of their role. Through our EMPOWER initiative, we are sparking untapped energies and developing our associates with knowledge, skills and tools to make decisions, be accountable for their actions and execute efficiently. Changing a culture is a journey that goes hand in hand with investments in our QIAGENers and in growth-driving products for the future.

Just as 2020 was a year of stepping up to meet changes and challenges, 2021 and beyond will be a time of accelerating opportunities through an unwavering focus on our five Pillars of Growth. As a strong, independent, sharply focused company, our roadmap sets specific goals to serve our customers and markets while creating long-term value for our stakeholders, including our shareholders and employees.

My colleagues in the Executive Committee and I look forward to hearing from and interacting with you – our stakeholders – as we move forward in this exciting time of dynamic development and growth. As we look beyond the pandemic, this is the time for us to seize the opportunities ahead and prove our value – and to do so with passion and unrelenting focus.

As we all hope to begin emerging from these difficult times around the world, I would like to wish you and those close to you all the very best, particularly in terms of health.

With kindest regards,

Thierry Bernard
Chief Executive Officer