The first article in our Real World Outcome series (which you can read here) showcased healthcare innovation, specifically within the context of early detection of cancer, assisting in improved patient outcomes. This is a structural growth theme within the Jupiter Global Leaders strategy which we describe as ‘Preventative Healthcare’. However, prevention is not just about clinical settings. If we look across the strategy, we see examples of companies able to benefit from the demand for detection and removal of environmental contaminants that are recognised as contributors to cancer risk.
One notable class of substance that poses a particular environment and health problem is PFAS – these are formally known as per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances, but are often referred to as ‘Forever Chemicals’ due to their persistence in the environment.
Leading the technological pathway
In recent years there has been an explosion of regulations to specifically identify, remove and restrict the future use of PFAS. A representative list of laws and regulations is included at the end of this article.
The Jupiter Global Leaders strategy has a ten-year investment horizon, and we consider this particular area a compelling structural opportunity to invest in companies leading the technology pathway to address this critical issue for improved planetary and societal outcomes.
Detection technology inevitably has some overlap with early detection of cancer cells and tumour mapping. Removal technologies include advanced water-treatment purification, which have a vital role in improving environmental and societal outcomes. This article reflects on the breadth of preventative healthcare investment thematic as a multifaceted opportunity, spanning biotechnology, diagnostics, and environmental engineering.
Forever Chemicals
PFAS are a broad class of over 4,000 synthetic chemical compounds, characterised by a chain of carbon atoms heavily bound to fluorine atoms The molecular bond is among the strongest single bonds in organic chemistry, which gives PFAS exceptional chemical and thermal stability, CF₄ for example, requires temperatures of over 1400 °C to achieve 99.99% destruction[1]. They are also noted for their ability to repel water, oil, and heat.
These properties give PFAS many commercial and industrial applications and this enabled their proliferation since the mid-20th century. The ubiquity of their use has led to significant regulatory and legislative response in recent times as the relationship between PFAS and human health becomes better understood.
Human PFAS exposure pathways
Skin absorption, typically through a variety of different carriers, such as sunscreen use, wearing waterproof clothing, or even school uniforms which are treated with PFAS. Historically it was thought that PFAS could not be absorbed by skin due to their water repellent properties. However, it is now considered a significant exposure pathway.
Inhalation of dust particles from household textiles treated with PFAS are also considered a risk to human health, such as stain resistant carpets and upholstery. The chemicals become airborne and are absorbed through breathing.
Ingestion typically occurs through water or food sources that are exposed to PFAS such as through a pesticide cycle in farming; food preparation with nonstick cookware and air fryers; or through food packaging.
Life Cycle of PFAS
Source: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection:nj.gov/dep/PFAS/
- The lifecycle of PFAS begins with industrial production. During manufacturing and processing, PFAS can be released into the air and water.
- From there, PFAS enter global supply chains and are used in a wide range of everyday products. Over time, small amounts can escape during normal use, for example through washing, heating, or general wear and tear. These releases are usually low level but they are continuous, making them hard to trace back to any single source.
- At the end of a product’s life, PFAS-containing materials enter waste systems that were never designed to deal with these types of man-made chemicals. Landfill, wastewater treatment, and incineration often move PFAS from one place to another rather than destroying them. This allows contamination to spread into groundwater, rivers, air, and agricultural land. In a global synthesis of soil data from over 100 peer-reviewed studies, over 30% of sampled surface soils had long-chain PFAS levels exceeding safety threshold values.[2]
- As a result, PFAS gradually shift from controlled industrial settings into the wider environment, where monitoring, cleanup, and responsibility become much more difficult and expensive.
- Once released, PFAS can travel long distances through air and water, leading to widespread background contamination far from where they were originally made or used. In fact, PFAS have been measured in ice, snow, water, soil and sediment in various remote environments including the Arctic and Antarctica.[3]
- Human exposure follows on from this, mainly through drinking water and food. Because exposure can come from multiple sources over long periods, the impacts of PFAS can persist even after production or use has stopped. This extends their lifecycle beyond individual products, creating long term environmental, public health, and regulatory challenges.
Key secondary characteristics are persistence, mobility and bioaccumulation. Specifically, in humans (and animals), many PFAS bioaccumulate, which means that they build up in the blood and organs faster than the body can eliminate them, over 98% of adults in the US have detectable PFAS in their blood,[4] Research has also linked long term PFAS exposure with a range of negative human health outcomes including immune health, hormone disruption, and increased risks of certain cancers as well as other health conditions. For example, PFAS exposure through US drinking water causes up to 6,800 new cancer cases every year.[5]
Strategy Holdings
Detection
‘Researchers worldwide are actively engaged in the effective detection, measurement, and risk assessment of PFAS in our environment, food, commercial and consumer products. However, accurately testing for PFAS poses a significant challenge because PFAS are almost impossible to exclude from the lab environment and testing products themselves. As a result, samples become contaminated. Additionally, the regulation surrounding PFAS is becoming increasingly stringent, further complicating the landscape.’ – Agilent[6]
Agilent (18,000 employees, a market capitalisation of $45billion) is a global leader in the Life Sciences Tools and Diagnostics sector. Agilent sells equipment used throughout the laboratory workflow, from sample preparation through to final measurement with a focus on contamination prevention and automation.; The company has highlighted AI productivity gains within its own quality control laboratories, where pilots of AI-assisted data analysis have reduced review time from nearly one hour to just a few minutes per batch.[7]
Agilent is also the world leader in gas chromatography and co-leader in liquid chromatography which are both used extensively in PFAS detection. Its PFAS extraction cartridges capture over 98% of target PFAS compounds in testing, helping laboratories measure these chemicals accurately even when they are present at trace levels.[8] Agilent has more instruments placed in laboratories globally than any other provider, serving many different types of labs including academic, government and diagnostic pathology labs. PFAS is a big growth area across commercial segment, water treatment plants and forensics
Danaher’s (60,000 employees, $160bn market cap) Life Sciences Division helps scientists across the life sciences industry (e.g. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, hospitals and diagnostic labs, universities, research and government institutions), with their leading-edge research including PFAS analysis.
In 2025, SCIEX (part of Danaher) introduced an advanced Liquid Chromatography -Tandem Mass Spectrometry method that enables the simultaneous detection of ultra-short, short, and long-chain PFAS compounds in a single analysis, simplifying workflows and expanding the range of PFAS that laboratories can reliably measure without multiple methods.[9]
Danaher also provide the high precision sensitivity analytical instruments, software and specialised filters used to measure and identify PFAS at extremely low levels in often very complex samples. To illustrate this, Danaher’s testing technology can detect PFAS at parts-per-trillion levels, with detection limits as low as ~0.1–13 nanograms per litre. To put that in context, this is equivalent to identifying just a few drops of a chemical in an Olympic sized swimming pool.[10]
Mettler-Toledo (17,000 employees, $28bn market cap) Mettler-Toledo’s micro-analytical balances can measure sample weights as small as 0.001 mg which is equivalent to1/50th of a grain of table salt. This gives laboratories the extreme precision needed to prepare standards and solutions for ultra-trace PFAS,[11] where even small errors can affect results at a parts-per-trillion levels.
Removal
American Water Works (AWK) (7,000 employees, $25bn market cap) was founded in 1886 and is the most geographically diversified water and wastewater utility company in the United States, supplying, treating and removing water for 14 million people in 24 states. It operates systems using a wide range of water sources and chemistries, including river water, groundwater, and hard water. This makes the company well suited to piloting and validating new PFAS treatment approaches under real-world, 24/7 operating conditions.
For over three decades AWK has had an in-house research and development team dedicated to researching contaminants in water supplies and developing solutions, as well as engaging with external governmental and society groups on related issues and policy. On an annual basis, AWK undertakes millions of water quality tests, looking for chemical, microbial and radiological contaminants, and conducts leading research into the impact of contaminants on the water supply. We believe this capability to be a key differentiator in the industry, contributing to AWK’s ability to lead on water quality and regulatory engagement.
AWK expects that it will need to upgrade 100 of its existing drinking water facilities to deal with PFAS requirements, at an expense of $1 billion over 3-5 years with annual operating costs of $50 million as a result of testing and the installation of granular activated carbon and ion-exchange systems to remove the chemicals. The company is actively pushing for the polluters to be held responsible for the costs of PFAS clean-up, and is promoting national drinking water standards with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ecolab (48,000 employees, $74bn market cap) was incorporated in 1924 and listed in 1957, since then it has grown to be a leader in water management and treatment as well as hygiene, sanitisation and infection prevention and services. It operates in around 170 countries worldwide, serving around 3 million customers across more than 40 end markets. Ecolab’s products and services help its customers to treat, conserve and reuse a very large amount of water, helping them to become more resource efficient, reduce costs and waste, which supports profitability.
Ecolab also targets helping its customers save 1.1 billion cubic metres a year, equivalent to the drinking needs of around 1 billion people by 2030. These figures will feed directly into operational improvements for the company’s customers, helping them to conserve resources and use them more effectively, and manage the risk of increased costs of water extraction and pollution. The company’s water treatment solutions have already been used to treat more than 11 billion gallons of PFAS contaminated water worldwide, demonstrating their large-scale, real-world deployment.[12]
Kubota’s (52,000 employees, ¥3T market cap) Water & Environment segment was founded in 1890. The company began as a manufacturer of cast-iron pipes for water supply systems in Japan, addressing issues that cities were having with water infrastructure, required to stop the spread of cholera and other infectious diseases.
The company remains a leading provider of ductile iron pipes, which are central to resilient water infrastructure. Their high strength, flexibility and leak resistance make them well suited to extreme weather conditions, including typhoons and torrential rainfall, where ground movement and pressure surges can compromise less robust piping systems.
In June 2025, Kubota together with Tohoku University and the University of the Ryukyus received NEDO[13] funding to develop new technologies for PFAS management. The joint research focuses on rapid, low-concentration detection and efficient, safe decomposition of PFAS compounds known for persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity, all while enabling resource recovery rather than energy-intensive incineration. Tohoku University leads detection methods, Ryukyus University advances decomposition techniques, and Kubota works to translate these innovations into scalable, real-world systems.
Roto-Rooter, a subsidiary of Chemed (16,000 employees, $74bn market cap), provides plumbing, drain cleaning, excavation, water restoration and other related services to residential and commercial customers. The company owns over 125 of its own branches, in addition to ~370 independent contractors and franchisees under the Roto-Rooter trademark, who collectively offer services to more than 90% of the U.S. population.
Roto-Rooter treats PFAS in residential water supply through in-home filtration systems to remove pollutants from tap water. This capability is increasingly important given a recent US Geological Survey study estimated that at least 45 % of tap water sampled across the United States contained one or more PFAS compounds, based on testing at more than 700 locations.[14] Their in-home Reverse Osmosis Systems are able to remove 99% of PFAS from a dedicated tap in the home, as well as offering broader technologies which specialise in the removal of lead and parasites.
A strategy underpinned by financial resilience and real-world outcomes
The Global Leaders strategy aims to identify profitable, well capitalised companies capable of compounding growth over the long term. Innovation in the detection, monitoring and removal of PFAS benefit from attractive fundamentals, critical products and services, and strong regulatory and technological barriers to entry.
Tangible benefit is central to our investment thesis. The companies discussed here deliver measurable, real-world improvements through more accurate and earlier PFAS detection, safer and more efficient remediation, reduced environmental and human exposure, and improved compliance with increasingly stringent regulation across water, food and industrial industries.
We have a ten year investment horizon, investing in companies at the forefront of long term structural growth drivers that deliver positive real world environmental and social outcomes.
Current regulation and legislation catalysts
Examples of US Regulations/Laws
Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) 2024 – Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) enforceable maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) and monitoring requirements for specific PFAS in public drinking water[15]
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) 2023 - Requires manufacturers/importers to report detailed information on PFAS production, use, disposal, exposures and hazards to EPA[16]
TSCA Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) - EPA review and pre-notification requirement for new uses or imports of certain PFAS chemicals[17]
CERCLA (Superfund) Hazardous Substance Designations 2024 - EPA designates selected PFAS as hazardous substances, triggering cleanup liability when contamination occurs[18]
Clean Water Act (CWA) Ongoing implementation - Regulates PFAS in surface waters and wastewater.[19].
Also to note: Many states impose stricter drinking water limits, product bans, and reporting requirements, often exceeding federal standards.
Examples of EU Regulations / Laws
REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation - Initial proposal submitted: January 13, 2023 (published by European Chemical Agency, February 7, 2023) - EU chemical framework under which a group-based PFAS restriction is being developed, potentially covering thousands of PFAS with phased bans[20].
EU Drinking Water Directive 2020 - Sets limits for PFAS in drinking water ( 0.1 µg/l for the sum of PFAS and 0.5 µg/l for total PFAS) with compliance required by January 2026.[21]
EU Export/Import Controls (PIC Regulation) - Controls trade of certain PFAS under the Prior Informed Consent regime beyond just internal market regulation[22]
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Tolerable Weekly Intake 2020 - sets a safety threshold intake limit of 4.4 ng/kg body weight [23].
Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) (Adopted 2025; applies from Aug 2026)- EU-wide restriction on PFAS in food-contact packaging, if PFAS concentrations meet or exceed defined thresholds [24].
Footnotes
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412025006762
[3] Hidden Contaminants: The Presence of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Remote Regions
[5] https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/factor/2025/2/science-highlights/PFAS-water-cancer
[6] https://www.agilent.com/about/great-science/en/06-PFAS.html
[7] https://www.agilent.com/about/great-science/en/04-artificial-intelligence.html
[8] https://www.agilent.com/cs/library/applications/an-bond-elut-PFAS-wax-spe-5994-4960en-agilent.pdf
[9] Expanding PFAS Detection: LC-MS/MS Breakthrough Targets Ultra-Short Chains | Separation Science
[13] NEDO stands for New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation. It is a national research and development agency in Japan that creates innovation by promoting technological development necessary for realization of a sustainable society.
[15] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46652#:~:text=Since%201996%2C%20EPA%20has%20updated,and%20polyfluoroalkyl%20substances%20(PFAS)
[17] Key EPA Actions to Address PFAS | US EPA
[19] https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF12148/IF12148.5.pdf
[20] https://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/understanding-reach
[21] Drinking water - Environment - European Commission
[22] https://exploremat.com/PFAS-us-eu-import-export-regulation-control
[23] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/PFAS-food-efsa-assesses-risks-and-sets-tolerable-intake
[24] https://www.packaginglaw.com/special-focus/new-eu-packaging-and-packaging-waste-regulation-highlights-and-challenges-ahead
The value of active minds: independent thinking
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