Invitrogen

Invitrogen Corporation (nasdaq: IVGN) is a life science research company, providing products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide in their efforts to improve the human condition. Invitrogen provides essential life science technologies for disease research, drug discovery and commercial bio-production and its products can be found in nearly every major laboratory in the world. Invitrogen’s product family includes many of the most widely recognized names in the industry, including Molecular Probes, BioSource, BioReliance, Gibco, Caltag, Zymed and Dynal Biotech. Founded in 1987, Invitrogen is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and conducts business in more than 70 countries around the world. Employing over 4,300 worldwide, Invitrogen is one of the largest companies in its field. Invitrogen has eight manufacturing locations in North America, Europe and Asia, operations in more than 20 countries, and distributor relationships in 50 countries worldwide.

History
Invitrogen was founded in 1987 and incorporated in 1989. The company owed its success primarily to the popularity of its innovative kits for molecular cloning. The company expanded significantly when it acquired rival company Life Technologies in 2000.

Invitrogen then engaged in a series of rapid mergers and acquisitions. Numerous established companies, such as Molecular Probes, Dynal, Panvera, Genicon Sciences, BioSource, Zymed, and Caltag Laboratories, and smaller research products manufacturers were brought under the Invitrogen brand name.

As a direct result of these actions, the company owns a large number of the industry's flagship products: Dynabeads magnetic separation technology, Gibco-brand cell-culture products, SuperScript-brand reverse transcriptase, Platinum Hot-Start Taq polymerase, Novex-brand protein electrophoresis products, and numerous fluorescent reagents like Alexa Fluor Dyes.

Some of these products have been divested. An example is Gibco Electrophoresis Power Supplies to Whatman.

Business Units
Functional Genomics, Cloning and Protein Expression, Drug Discovery Solutions, Detection Technologies, Bioproduction, Cell Culture, Biological Defense Systems

Sales
Revenues of $1.15 billion for 2006