Rainer M. Blair
President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher
Well, thank you, John, and good morning to all of you. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. So, let's jump right in. Our positive momentum continued in the third quarter with 10% core revenue growth and solid earnings and cash flow performance. This strength was based across The portfolio with high single-digit or better core growth in all three reporting segments. We're particularly pleased with the consistent performance of our base business, which has grown high single-digits or better for nine consecutive quarters. Now these well-rounded results were driven by our team's outstanding execution through a challenging operating environment. They've done a terrific job running the Danaher playbook to proactively reduce structural costs, while continuing to accelerate high impact growth investments. We believe our ability to deliver meaningful innovation and reliably serve customers has contributed to market share gains in many of our businesses.
Now, during the quarter, we also announced our intention to separate our Environmental and Applied Solutions segment to create a publicly-traded company. This new company which we will refer to as EAS for now, will be well-positioned in the most attractive areas of the Water Quality and Product Identification market. EAS will be comprised of outstanding businesses with strong ESG fundamentals, durable business models, and a very attractive financial profile, averaging mid single-digit core revenue growth over the last five years with 55% recurring revenue today and an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 25%. Now as a stand-alone company, EAS will have greater opportunities to meaningfully deploy capital towards M&A. And, of course, EAS will have the Danaher Business System as its foundation along with a commitment to continuous improvement that will support the same outstanding results EAS has as part of Danaher today. Of course, we look forward to sharing more details here in the coming months.
As for Danaher, this separation will establish us as a more focused science and technology leader committed to innovation and making a profound impact on human health. We've got a great lineup of leading franchises positioned in highly attractive Life Sciences and Diagnostics end-market, all united by a common set of durable, high recurring revenue business models. We remain focused on strengthening our portfolio and competitive advantage in these areas and we see tremendous opportunities to continue delivering sustainable long-term performance.
So with that, let's turn our third -- let's turn to our third quarter results in more detail. Sales were $7.7 billion and we delivered 10% core revenue growth, including 8.5% core growth in our base business. Respiratory testing contributed an additional 150 basis points to core revenue growth in the quarter. Geographically, we continue to see strong demand across the developed markets despite current macroeconomic and geopolitical events.
North Americas core revenue was up high-teens with all three segments delivering double-digit or better core revenue growth. Core revenue in Western Europe grew high single-digits with customer activity and funding levels remaining healthy. High growth markets core revenues were up mid single-digit. In China, our teams effectively managed through ongoing COVID-19 headwinds to deliver high single-digit growth in the quarter.
Our gross profit margin for the third quarter was 59.8% and our operating margin was 26.3%. We had 50 basis points of core operating margin expansion, driven in part by disciplined cost management, productivity measures and price actions. The operating environment remains dynamic across our businesses globally, but we experienced fewer supply chain disruptions in the third quarter. Logistics improved as freight cost began to stabilize.
We also saw a modest improvement in material availability, those certain electronic components remained difficult to procure. And despite these challenges, our teams have done an outstanding job taking proactive measures and leveraging the DBS tool set to minimize the impact of supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures. Adjusted diluted net earnings per common share of $2.50 were up 7% versus last year. We also generated $1.7 billion of free cash flow in the quarter and $5.2 billion year-to-date.
So now let's take a look at our results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end-markets today. In our Life Sciences segment, reported revenue grew 4% and core revenue was up 8%. Strength was broad-based with most businesses achieving high single-digit or better core revenue growth. In bioprocessing, robust activity levels drove over 20% growth in our non-COVID business that Cytiva and Pall Biotech. As expected, our customers continued to transition away from COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic program and into programs for other modalities. We expect these trends to continue through the fourth quarter, resulting in high single-digit core revenue growth in our bioprocessing business for the full year.
In September, we hosted an Investor Day at Cytiva to showcase our bioprocessing business and highlighted the tremendous long-term growth opportunities we're positioned for, in biologics and genomic medicine. We also announced that we're bringing together Cytiva and Pall Life Sciences as the biotechnology group. The combined portfolio has the broadest offering in the industry with end-to-end solutions across all major therapeutic modalities, from monoclonal antibodies to emerging cell, gene and mRNA-based therapy. The biotechnology Group will have unmatched global scale with the industry's largest commercial team allowing us to further extend the reach of our best-in class customer service. We also believe focused innovation across the joint portfolio will ensure our products and solutions are aligned to best meet the customers needs around quality yeilds [Phonetic]and cost. With Pall Life Sciences and Cytiva joining forces, the biotechnology group is uniquely positioned to help our customers become more efficient and bring more of life-saving therapies to market faster.
Moving to our Life Sciences Instrument businesses, they collectively delivered double-digit base business core revenue growth, led by SCIEX, Leica Microsystems, and Beckman Coulter Life sciences. Funding levels remained strong globally and we saw solid customer demand across most major end-markets. We continued our strong pace of innovation in Life Sciences with the introduction of Beckman Coulter's Biomek NGenius. The NGenius is a cost-effective, easy to use sample preparation system that reduces manual transfers and hands-on time a Next-Gen sequencing library construction. This is a great example of how our investments and innovation are delivering impactful solutions to our customers.
Our Genomics businesses had another quarter of double-digit core revenue growth, led by strong demand for plasmid, RNA, and next-generation sequencing solutions. This quarter, marked Aldevron first anniversary as part of Danaher. And we couldn't be more pleased with the team's performance. Financially, the results speak for themselves with more than 30% year-over-year revenue growth since acquisition. The team has done a tremendous job embracing DBS tools and processes to meaningfully reduce lead-time and increase capacity. Now this capacity is certainly supporting customers needs today, but it's equally important to support Aldevron's long-term growth outlook. With a view towards the future, we're excited about the opportunities to collaborate across our Genomics businesses and create unique solutions to help our customers accelerate the development and commercialization of mRNA and other nucleic acid-based therapies.
Moving to our Diagnostics segment. Reported revenue was up 9.5% and core revenue grew 13.5%, led by nearly 30% core revenue growth at Cepheid. Leica Biosystems grew mid-teens in the quarter, driven by strength in core histology and advanced staining. As customers seek to improve productivity within their labs, we're seeing strong early momentum for Leica's recent innovation bond prime, a fully automated advanced staining platform.
Beckman Coulter Diagnostics delivered solid results with mid single-digit core growth despite ongoing COVID-19 headwinds in Chime. In Molecular Diagnostics, core revenue across Cepheid nonrespiratory test menu grew approximately 10%, led by double-digit growth in virology and infectious disease testing. In respiratory testing, global PCR volumes have moderated, but demand is still elevated for symptomatic testing at the point-of-care wehere Cepheid is the gold standard. Cepheid's respiratory testing revenue of approximately $875 million exceeded our expectations of approximately 325 million. Higher prevalence of circulating respiratory viruses combined with advanced purchases by customers in anticipation of a more severe respiratory season in the Northern Hemisphere led to both higher volumes and the preference for our four-in-one for COVID-19, Flu-A, Flu-B and RSV.
Now we're starting to see our customers consolidate their point-of-care PCR testing platforms onto Cepheid GeneXpert. The GeneXpert provide significant value to clinicians with the unique combination of fast, accurate lab quality results and the best-in class workflow. Customers are also increasingly interested in opportunities for broader utilization of Cepheid's leading test menu. Our opportunity funnel for nonrespiratory tests has increased significantly this year and we see opportunities to continue gaining market share moving forward.
Moving to our Environmental and Applied Solutions segment, reported revenue grew 5% and core revenue was up 10.5%. Water quality was up mid-teens and product identification grew low-single digit. At Product Identification, marking and coding was up low-single digits and packaging and color management in the mid single-digit. Videojet was up low-single digits, in part due to a difficult year-over-year comparison as the business grew low double-digits in Q3 last year. Now during the quarter, we saw strength in food and beverage as well as the consumer end-markets.
In water quality, ChemTreat and Hach each grew high-teens during the third quarter. Demand for analytical chemistry and consumables remain solid across our major end-markets. Municipal and industrial project activity was broadly consistent with the first half of the year, driving solid equipment growth. Now last week at WEFTEC, the annual wastewater trade show, the water quality team highlighted several solutions that are improving the efficiency and sustainability of the water treatment process. Hach's ultra-low range chlorine analyzer raises the industry standard to parts per billion chemical detection levels, helping customers extending the membrane life of their treatment systems and reduce maintenance costs.
At Trojan, innovative solutions such as Trojan UV Cigna and Trojan UV3000Plus reduce environmental impact by treating water with ultraviolet light instead of traditional chemical disinfection methods. Every over 1 billion people benefit from water treated by Trojan. So these are just a few examples of how our Water Quality platform is supporting customers day-to-day mission-critical water operations and making a positive impact on world.
So with that color on what we're seeing in our businesses and end-markets, let's now briefly look ahead at expectations for the fourth quarter and the full year. In the fourth quarter, we expect to deliver high single-digit core revenue growth in our base business. We expect a high single to low-double-digit core revenue growth headwinds from COVID-19 testing, resulting in a core revenue growth being flat-to-down low-single digits in the 4th-quarter. Additionally, we expect the fourth quarter adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 30%.
Now for the full year 2022, there is no change to our previous guidance of high single-digit core revenue growth in our base business. We now expect high single-digit overall core revenue growth, which is up from our prior expectation of mid single-digit as a result of our strong COVID-19 testing performance in the third quarter. We continue to expect operating profit fall-through of approximately 25% for the full year.
So to wrap-up, we're very pleased with our third quarter results. Our well-rounded performance truely is a testament to our team's commitment to innovating and executing in support of our customers. These results also reinforce Danaher's strength and durability. Our differentiated portfolio is well-positioned in attractive end-markets with long-term secular growth drivers, and our business models are resilient with nearly 75% of our revenue today being recurrent. So putting it all together, the strength of our portfolio and balance sheet combined with our talented team and the power and the proactive application of the Danaher Business System provides an outstanding foundation for delivering sustainable long-term results.
So with that, I will turn it back over to John.
