Avantor

The company's history traces back to 1904, when John Townsend Baker (1860–1935) founded the chemical company J.T. Baker specializing in producing chemically pure reagents. The company gained recognition for its "Baker Analyzed" labels, which provided detailed analyses of trace impurities in its products. In 1911, the company began publishing "The Chemist-Analyst," which promoted its products and philosophy. After Baker's death in 1935, the company was acquired by Vick Chemical Company in 1941. During World War II, J.T. Baker expanded its product line to include penicillin, pesticides, and chemicals for batteries and munitions. After the war, the company further diversified into high-purity solvents, chromatography columns, and hazardous waste spill kits. In 1985, J.T. Baker and its parent company Richardson-Vicks were sold to Procter & Gamble, and subsequently sold to Mallinckrodt in 1995.

In 2010, investment firm New Mountain Capital purchased Mallinckrodt Baker Inc., which then changed its name to Avantor. The company extended its international market with the 2011 acquisitions of the Indian laboratory reagents supplier RFCL and the Polish lab supply firm POCH.

In 2016, Avantor merged with Nusil Technology. In 2017, Avantor acquired chemical blending business Puritan Products Inc. and laboratory supplies company VWR. The combined company operates under the Avantor name, with VWR and vwr.com remaining as a selling channel.

In May 2019, Avantor went public with a $3.8 billion initial public offering, which gave the company a market capitalization of $7.62 billion. As of December 2023, the top shareholders of Avantor included Vanguard Group Inc., Dodge & Cox Inc., T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc., and BlackRock Inc.

That same year the company expanded further into Asia with the opening of an innovation center in Shanghai, which focuses on monoclonal antibodies and cell and gene therapy. In 2020, Avantor doubled the size of its Bridgewater, New Jersey innovation center, expanding its research and development capabilities and cell and gene therapy reagent manufacturing.

In 2020, Avantor began providing services and raw materials to companies manufacturing vaccines and other therapies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Avantor added employees and extra shifts in order to increase capacity for producing synthetic lipids that are formed into nanoparticles, which carry mRNA into human cells.

In June 2021, Avantor acquired China-based RIM Bio, a manufacturer of single-use bioprocess bags and assemblies for biopharmaceutical manufacturing applications.

Through the acquisition, Avantor gained access to RIM's Changzhou, China facility, marking Avantor's first single-use production plant in the Africa, Middle East, Asia (AMEA) region. The deal is part of a larger expansion of the company's single-use manufacturing footprint with plans to increase its presence by 30%.

Controversies

On August 26, 2020, Bloomberg News implicated Avantor and other companies in the U.S. opioid epidemic. According to Bloomberg, one of their compounds "acetic anhydride", was used illicitly by drug traffickers to convert crude opium into heroin. Bloomberg also found evidence that Avantor's compound was used in cartel drug labs, and that regulations implemented in 2018 didn't stop it from being widely available. In response, Avantor discontinued all sales of acetic anhydride in Mexico and destroyed its existing inventory. In 2021, Texas Senator John Cornyn, who serves on both the Judiciary Committee and the bipartisan Caucus on International Narcotics Control claims that Avantor should have known better, selling acetic anhydride within Mexico's unregulated market. What should have raised eyebrows as well is that it was sold in 18-liter containers, which is inconsistent with the ordinary use of acetic anhydride. Four other Republican senators also deplored Avantor's “apparent longstanding contribution to the opioid epidemic that killed 50,000 of our fellow citizens in 2019.”