Who Owns Invitrogen?

Invitrogen was founded in 1987 in San Diego, California, selling molecular biology reagents and kits that simplified cloning and gene analysis. The company grew by acquisition through the 1990s, buying Research Genetics, Life Technologies' predecessor namesake (a separate Bethesda, Maryland, company then called Life Technologies Inc., formed from the Bethesda Research Laboratories lineage), and other reagent businesses.

A landmark deal came in 2000, when Invitrogen acquired Life Technologies Inc., gaining the Gibco cell culture media brand and a broad catalog of molecular biology products. The combined company kept the Invitrogen name and established itself as the leading reagents supplier to academic and pharmaceutical laboratories.

Further acquisitions added Novex (protein electrophoresis), Dynal (magnetic bead technology, acquired 2005), and Molecular Probes (fluorescent dyes and imaging reagents, acquired 2003), a portfolio that made Invitrogen a cornerstone supplier across cell biology, genomics, and proteomics.

In 2008, Invitrogen merged with Applied Biosystems in a deal valued at about $6.7 billion, and the combined entity took the Life Technologies name, headquartered in Carlsbad. Thermo Fisher announced its acquisition of Life Technologies in 2013 and completed it in February 2014 for $13.6 billion, folding the brands into its Life Sciences Solutions segment.

Under Thermo Fisher, Invitrogen has remained the reagents and consumables brand, anchoring product categories such as TOPO cloning kits, Platinum and SuperScript enzymes, and antibody lines. Gibco cell culture media, a mainstay of biologics manufacturing including vaccine production, operates under the Invitrogen brand family.