Thermo Fisher has agreed to sell its microbiology business in a deal above $1bn to private equity firm Astorg, reflecting the life sciences giant’s ongoing pivot away from in vitro diagnostics (IVD) towards bolstering its biopharma presence.
Thermo Fisher expects the deal to close in H2 2026 and intends to provide details on its impact to the company’s 2026 outlook during a Q2 earnings call.
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“The transaction reflects our active management of the company and provides additional capital we can deploy to create shareholder value,” said Thermo Fisher CEO Marc N. Casper.
Astorg said it would partner closely with management to further scale the business, aiming to accelerate growth and enhance operational performance.
Thermo Fisher’s microbiology business generated $645m in revenue in 2025 and is part of the company’s broader speciality diagnostics business segment. The business has approximately 2,400 employees, alongside 13 manufacturing and R&D sites around the world.
Despite this healthy revenue generation, Thermo Fisher’s planned divestment of the business reflects its pivot out of the IVD space, Dr Andrew S Thompson, director of therapy research and analysis in medical devices for GlobalData told Medical Device Network.
According to Thompson, the IVD space is “volatile”, with microbiology an area of traditional IVD that “may become less relevant as newer technologies replace the need to culture bacteria and viruses for pathological investigations”.
Thompson continued: “There will always be a need for reference laboratories, but there are other techniques, such as within mass spectrometry, that can replace this approach to understanding a microbial phenotype.”
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) made a similar move to shrink its diagnostics business portfolio with the $17.5bn divestment of its Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions business to Waters Corporation in July 2025.
Thermo Fisher’s divestment of its microbiology business follows its $4.1bn acquisition of Solventum’s purification and filtration unit in February 2025. Thompson notes that this deal “cemented” the company’s interest in biopharma. Thermo Fisher also acquired clinical trial services provider Clario in an $8.8bn deal in October 2025.
“Thermo Fisher is positioning itself more into biopharma, likely as a service provider which, in a way, fits with its traditional business model,” Thompson added.
The IVD space also represents an increasing degree of regulatory challenges, with the European Union’s (EU) in vitro diagnostics regulation (IVDR) having a difficult time getting rolled out in Europe. According to Thompson, this could represent another factor in Thermo Fisher’s decision to sell its microbiology business.
Speaking at the MEDICA convention in Germany in November 2025, Dr Sascha Wettmarshausen, head of regulatory affairs and quality at German trade association Verband der Diagnostica-Industrie (VDGH), highlighted that continued delays to the IVDR’s implementation are having a significant drag on IVD innovation in Europe.
