Avantor, Inc. (Avantor) operates as a global provider of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, and advanced technologies and applied materials industries.
The company’s business model is grounded in supporting its customers from discovery to delivery and Avantor is embedded in virtually every stage of the most important research, scale-up and manufacturing activities in the industries it serves.
The company’s comprehensive o...
Avantor, Inc. (Avantor) operates as a global provider of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, and advanced technologies and applied materials industries.
The company’s business model is grounded in supporting its customers from discovery to delivery and Avantor is embedded in virtually every stage of the most important research, scale-up and manufacturing activities in the industries it serves.
The company’s comprehensive offering provides scientists all they need to conduct their research: materials & consumables, equipment & instrumentation and services & specialty procurement. The company’s customer-centric innovation model enables it to provide solutions for some of the most demanding applications, and it leverages its comprehensive offering and access to early-stage research to identify and develop content and solutions that ultimately become specified into its customers’ approved production platforms. The company’s broad portfolio of products and services, fully integrated business model and global supply chain enable it to support its customers’ journey every step of the way.
The company has a number of distinctive capabilities that set it apart from other companies in its space. For example, the company’s global footprint offers extraordinary customer access, enabling it to serve more than 300,000 customer locations in approximately 180 countries around the world.
Business segments
The company operates through Laboratory Solutions and Bioscience Production segments.
Within the company’s reportable segments, it sells materials & consumables, equipment & instrumentation and services & specialty procurement to customers in the biopharma & healthcare, education & government and advanced technologies & applied materials industries. The company works with customers across these sophisticated, science-driven industries that require innovation and adherence to the most demanding technical and regulatory requirements.
Products and Services
The company’s portfolio includes a comprehensive range of products and services that allows it to create customized and integrated solutions for its customers. These products and services enable the company’s customers to achieve precise analytical results in their research, diagnostic, and quality assurance and quality control activities. It also provides mission-critical, high-purity materials and solutions to customers that support the development and production of their life-changing treatments. The company’s products and services are as follows:
Materials & consumables include ultra-high purity chemicals and reagents, lab products and supplies, highly specialized formulated silicone materials, customized excipients, customized single-use assemblies, process chromatography resins and columns, analytical sample prep kits and education and microbiology and clinical trial kits, and fluid handling tips. Some of these are proprietary products that the company makes while others are produced by third parties.
Equipment & instrumentation include filtration systems, virus inactivation systems, incubators, analytical instruments, evaporators, ultra-low-temperature freezers, peristaltic pumps, biological safety cabinets and critical environment supplies.
Services & specialty procurement include onsite lab and production, equipment, procurement and sourcing and biopharmaceutical material scale-up and development services.
In aggregate, the company provides millions of SKUs, including high value specialty products developed to exacting purity and performance specifications. Its proprietary brands have been specified and trusted for decades. The company’s e-commerce platform makes it easy for customers to do business with it and enables digital marketing efforts that position it to capture new demand. All of the company’s capabilities are underpinned by its Avantor Business System which drives execution and continuous improvement. The company manufactures products that meet or exceed the demanding requirements of its customers across a number of highly regulated industries. Its high-purity and ultra-high purity products, such as its J.T.Baker brand chemicals, are trusted by life sciences and electronic materials customers around the world and can be manufactured at purity levels as stringent as one part-per-trillion. Similarly, the company’s NuSil brand of high-purity, customized silicones has been trusted by leading medical device manufacturers and aerospace companies.
The company’s services organization of over 2,500 colleagues work side-by-side with its customers to support their workflows. Its traditional service offerings focus on the needs of laboratory scientists and include procurement, logistics, inventory and stock room management, chemical and equipment tracking and glassware autoclaving. In addition, the company offers more complex and value-added scientific research support and production services, such as DNA extraction, media preparation, bioreactor servicing and compound management, and cleanroom control, monitoring, maintenance, and sanitization.
Customers
The company benefits from longstanding customer relationships, and approximately 40% of its 2024 net sales came from customers that had relationships with it for 15 years or more. The company also has a diverse customer base with no single end customer comprising more than 5% of net sales.
Sales Channels
The company reaches its customers throughout the Americas, Europe, and AMEA via a well-trained global sales force, comprehensive websites and targeted catalogs. The company’s sales force is comprising approximately 3,500 sales and sales support professionals, including over 200 sales specialists selected for their in-depth industry and product knowledge. Its sales professionals include native speakers for each of the countries in which it operates, allowing it to have high impact interactions with its customers across the globe.
The company’s e-commerce platform plays a vital role in how it conducts business with its customers. In 2024, approximately 76% of its transactions came from the company’s digital channels. The company’s websites utilize search analytics and feature personalized search tools, customer specific web solutions and enhanced data that optimize its customers’ online purchasing experience with rich content and AI-based recommendations and better integrate its customers’ processes with its own. The company’s websites are designed to integrate acquisitions, drive geographical expansion and serve segmented market needs with ease. In addition, it has introduced digital services and solutions that streamline lab procurement and operations and have become embedded into many customers’ laboratories, such as Avantor’s Inventory Manager.
Intellectual Property
The company has applied in the United States and certain foreign countries for registration of a number of trademarks, service marks and patents, some of which have been registered and issued. It also holds common law rights in various trademarks and service marks. Other than the company’s Avantor, VWR, J.T.Baker, NuSil and Masterflex trademarks, it not consider any particular patent, trademark, license, franchise or concession to be material to its overall business.
Government Contracts
The company conducts business with various government agencies and government contractors.
Government Regulation
The company’s facilities that engage in the manufacturing, packaging, distribution of material used in biopharmaceutical and biomaterials production, as well as many of its products themselves, are subject to extensive ongoing regulation by U.S. governmental authorities, the EMA and other global regulatory authorities. Certain of the company’s subsidiaries are required to register with these agencies, or to apply for permits and/or licenses with, and must comply with the operating, cGMP, quality and security standards of applicable domestic and foreign regulators, including the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, DHHS, the equivalent agencies of the European Union (EU) member states, and comparable foreign, state and local agencies, as well as various accrediting bodies, each depending upon the type of operation and the locations of storage or sale of the products manufactured or services provided by those subsidiaries in the event of noncompliance.
In order to maintain certain certifications of quality and safety standards for the company’s manufacturing facilities and operations, it must comply with numerous regulatory systems, standards, guidance and other requirements, as appropriate, including, ICH Q7, the guidelines of the International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council, European in vitro diagnostic medical device directives, U.S. Pharmacopeia / National Formulary, as well as the European, British, Japanese, Indian and Chinese Pharmacopeia, the Food Chemicals Codex and controlled substances regulations.
In addition, the company’s operations, and some of the products it offers, are subject to a number of complex and stringent laws and regulations governing the production, handling, transportation and distribution of chemicals, drugs and other similar products. It is subject to various federal, state, local, foreign and transnational laws, regulations and recommendations, both in the U.S. and abroad, relating to safe working conditions, good laboratory and distribution practices, and the safe and proper use, transportation and disposal of hazardous or potentially hazardous substances. In addition, U.S. and international import and export laws and regulations, including those enforced by the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State and Treasury, OFAC and BIS, require the company to abide by certain standards relating to the cross-border transit of finished goods, raw materials and supplies and the handling of related information. Its logistics activities must comply with the rules and regulations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and the Federal Aviation Administration and similar foreign agencies. The company is also subject to various other laws and regulations concerning the conduct of its foreign operations, including the FCPA and other anti-bribery laws, as well as laws pertaining to the accuracy of its internal books and records.
The company is registered with the Directorate of Defense Trade controls (DDTC) as a manufacturer and exporter of goods controlled by ITAR, and it is subject to strict export control and prior approval requirements related to these goods. In connection with its NuSil brand products, it has one ITAR site registration and one the International Traffic In Arms Regulations (ITAR) product registration, and it maintains control systems which enable ITAR compliance. With respect to the company’s electronic materials products, it adheres to applicable industry guidelines which set stringent quality criteria for its products, and it is subject to import and export regulations and other restrictions regarding the safe use of these products as well.
The company is also subject to various federal, state and international laws and regulations related to privacy and data protection, including the EU’s the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as well as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, which became effective on January 1, 2020 (as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, which took effect on January 1, 2023, the CPRA). The interpretation and application of data privacy, cross-border data transfers and data protection laws and regulations are often uncertain and are evolving in the U.S. and internationally, such as in the EU, China and other jurisdictions.
Environmental Matters
The company is subject to various laws and governmental regulations concerning environmental, safety and health matters, including employee safety and health, in the U.S. and other countries. U.S. federal environmental legislation that affects it includes the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and CERCLA.
The company is also subject to regulation by OSHA concerning employee safety and health matters. The EPA, OSHA, and other federal and foreign or local agencies have the authority to promulgate regulations that may impact its operations.
History
Avantor, Inc. was founded in 1904. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 2017.