[1][2][3] Danaher was among the first companies in North America to adopt Kaizen principles, a Japanese lean manufacturing philosophy of continuous improvement and efficiency.

[12] Since 1999, Danaher has owned 100% of Hach, broadening the portfolio of chemical, mainly water and wastewater, analytics also with the German company Lange.

[14] Leica manufactures a broad range of products for numerous applications requiring microscopic imaging, measurement and analysis.

[18] In 2009 Danaher purchased the Analytical Technologies business unit of Canadian Life Sciences company MDS, Inc. for US$650 million.

In October 2012, Danaher and Cooper Industries agreed to sell their joint venture, Apex Tool Group, to Bain Capital for a fee of around $1.6 billion.

[22] In December 2012 Danaher Corporation acquired Navman Wireless, a provider of on-demand fleet and asset management technology.

[35] In July 2018, Danaher announced its intention to spin off its $2.8 billion Dental segment into an independent publicly traded company.

[37] In October 2019, Danaher announced it has signed an agreement to sell its biomolecular characterization, chromatography hardware and resins, microcarriers and particle validation standards businesses to Sartorius AG for approximately $750 million.

"[40] The following morning, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted that Dr. Hahn was referring to tests being produced by an outside manufacturer, Integrated DNA Technologies.

[41] In March 2020, Danaher acquired the biopharma business of the General Electric Life Sciences division for $21.4 billion and was named Cytiva.

Danaher had to sell off part of its life sciences businesses to Sartorius to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission regulatory requirement for the acquisition.

"[54] On 28 August 2023, Danaher announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Abcam for approximately $5.7 billion at $24 per share in cash.

[57] In June, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted marketing approval to Danaher's Cepheid unit for a rapid test for hepatitis C. Using a blood sample from a fingertip, the rapid test detects the virus's RNA and delivers results in less than roughly an hour, as opposed to requiring a sample to be sent to a lab.

On September 12, 2023, author and vlogger John Green released a video[59] highlighting these ethical concerns and calling on his community to reach out to Danaher.

[60][61] One week later, Cepheid and Danaher announced a 20% price reduction for their Xpert MTB/RIF TB test cartridge, from $9.98 to $7.97 in high TB-burden countries.