Who Owns BioFire Diagnostics?

The company began in 1990 in Idaho Falls, Idaho, as Idaho Technology, founded by scientists Carl Wittwer, Randy Rasmussen, and Kirk Ririe. Its early work focused on rapid PCR technology for research and government applications, including biothreat detection systems used by military and public health agencies.

The firm moved to Salt Lake City and was renamed BioFire Diagnostics in 2003. Its defining product was the FilmArray, a closed-system PCR instrument that could test a single sample for dozens of pathogens at once, producing results in about an hour. The technology turned what had been a day-long, multi-step lab process into a near point-of-care test.

Regulatory clearances and adoption accelerated in the early 2010s. The system proved valuable during respiratory outbreaks, and the business attracted bioMerieux, which completed its acquisition in January 2014 for approximately 450 million dollars. The deal gave bioMerieux a leading position in the emerging syndromic testing market.

Under bioMerieux the product line expanded. The BIOFIRE family added gastrointestinal, meningitis/encephalitis, pneumonia, and blood culture identification panels alongside the original respiratory test. In 2023 the company launched SPOTFIRE, a smaller, lower-cost instrument for decentralized settings, which reached an installed base of 6,400 instruments by the end of 2025. BIOFIRE non-respiratory panels generated 598 million euros in FY2025 sales, up 10 percent organically, while SPOTFIRE sales reached 168 million euros, up 84 percent.

In May 2026 bioMerieux announced a 250 million euro investment in a new BIOFIRE manufacturing facility at La Balme-les-Grottes in France, expected to open by 2030 and create about 400 jobs, the first BIOFIRE production site outside the United States.