Thermo Fisher Scientific is shedding its microbiology business to private equity firm Astorg nearly a year after initial rumors of a sale surfaced.
The deal is worth $1.075 billion, consisting of cash and a $50 million seller note, according to an April 27 release.
The unit sells antimicrobial susceptibility testing and culture media solutions for clinical, pharma and food safety testing.
It generated $645 million in revenue in 2025 as part of the medtech giant’s Specialty Diagnostics segment. Rumors of a potential sale first surfaced last June.
Astorg told Fierce Medtech in a statement: “Through the transaction, Thermo Fisher’s microbiology business will become an independent, privately owned platform, backed by Astorg.”
The firm added that it “will partner closely with management” to “further scale the business, with a clear focus on accelerating growth and enhancing operational performance.”
The standalone unit has about 2,400 employees and operates 13 manufacturing and R&D sites globally.
Astorg noted in a release, however, that the market for the unit “is underpinned by structural tailwinds, including infection complexity, increasingly stringent food safety standards, and growing quality control requirements across the pharmaceutical industry,” which it said “reinforces the role of microbiology testing in safeguarding public health.”
The deal will be dilutive to adjusted earnings per share by $0.15 for Thermo Fisher in the first full year after closing, the company said, adding that it would provide more details on the impact in the second quarter.
The announcement comes less than a week after Thermo Fisher reported “a strong start to the year,” buoyed by strong first-quarter demand from its pharma and biotech customers, investment in new technologies and the closing of its $9 billion acquisition of clinical trial data company Clario.
First-quarter revenue rose 6% to $11.01 billion. The company also said on an April 23 call with investors that the situation in the Middle East is expected to create “some modest level of inflationary pressure.”
