Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American global company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for laboratories. Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

. The resulting

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

of Agilent stock was the largest in the history of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

at the time. From 1999 to 2014, the company produced optics (LED, laser),

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

s, EDA software and test and measurement equipment for electronics; that division was spun off to form

Keysight Keysight Technologies, Inc. is an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software. The name is a blend of ''key'' and ''insight''. The company was formed as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies, which inhe ...

. Since then, the company has continued to expand into pharmaceutical, diagnostics & clinical, and academia & government (research) markets.

Products and services

Agilent serves analytical laboratories and the clinical and routine diagnostics markets with a full suite of technology platforms. These include:

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

, bioreagents, FISH probes, gas and liquid chromatography,

immunohistochemistry Immunohistochemistry is a form of immunostaining. It involves the process of selectively identifying antigens in cells and tissue, by exploiting the principle of Antibody, antibodies binding specifically to antigens in biological tissues. Alber ...

informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

microarrays A microarray is a multiplex lab-on-a-chip. Its purpose is to simultaneously detect the expression of thousands of biological interactions. It is a two-dimensional array on a solid substrate—usually a glass slide or silicon thin-film cell� ...

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectro ...

, target enrichment, and vacuum technologies. Agilent also provides lab management services, including enterprise asset management, laboratory business intelligence, equipment management and service,

software maintenance Software maintenance is the modification of software after delivery. Software maintenance is often considered lower skilled and less rewarding than new development. As such, it is a common target for outsourcing or offshoring. Usually, the tea ...

regulatory compliance In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Compliance has traditionally been explained by reference to deterrence theory, according to which punishing a behavior will decrease the viol ...

, sample preparation, genomics and cloning, GC and HPLC columns, spectrometry and spectroscopy supplies, and consumables. The company is known for investing in R&D within its own research labs and those of leading universities to advance the state of knowledge in the life sciences, diagnostics, and chemical analysis space. In recent years, the company has advanced digital lab instrumentation and technology that improves lab workflow and overall efficiency and productivity. In 2020, Agilent introduced CrossLab Virtual Assist, a mobile app that facilities high-quality remote technical support. Agilent’s digital advancements, including CrossLab Connect, have also improved lab optimization and sustainability by providing more efficient utilization of instruments, which can lower a lab’s energy consumption. Agilent is also a pioneer of the target enrichment used as part of a NGS workflow. The portfolio also includes sample prep, QA/QC instrumentation, 2100 bioanalyzers, and automation tools. In early 2023, the company announced a $725 million expansion of its nucleic acid-based therapeutics manufacturing facility in

Frederick, Colorado The Town of Frederick is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory town, Statutory Town located in Weld County, Colorado, Weld County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 14,513 at the 2020 United States census, a +67.22% incre ...

History

In 1965,

branched out into scientific equipment by acquiring F&M Scientific, maker of gas chromatographs. Agilent Technologies was created in 1999 as a spin-off of several business units of Hewlett-Packard including test & measurement, optics, instrumentation and chemical analysis, electronic components, and medical equipment product lines. The split was predicated on the difficulty of growing HP's revenue stream and on the competitive vigor of smaller, more agile competitors. The company's launch slogan was "Innovating the HP Way", which capitalized on the strong HP corporate culture. The starburst logo was selected to reflect "a burst of insight" (or "spark of insight") and the name "Agilent" aimed to invoke the notion of agility as a trait of the new firm. The Agilent spin-off was accompanied by an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

which raised $2.1 billion, setting a record at the time.

2000–2009

In the early 2000s, "economic uncertainty" depressed demand for Agilent's products, including slow sales of health care products to hospitals in the United States, which accounted for 60% of the company's revenue at the time. The downturn also struck sales in the communications and semiconductor markets, where orders amounting to $500 million were canceled by buyers. These poor economic conditions prompted large reductions in force; from a headcount in 1999 of 35,000, which had risen to 48,000 by May 2001, it had by early 2003 cut 18,500 positions. In 2001, in midst of this downsizing, Agilent sold its health care and medical products organization to Philips Medical Systems, and was noted as having a valuation of about $11 billion. HP Medical Products had been the second oldest part of

, acquired in the 1950s. In August 2005, Agilent announced the sale of its business which produced semiconductor

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

s (known as "chips") for consumer and industrial uses to

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global private-equity and investment company. , the firm had completed private-equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $710 billion of total ...

and Silver Lake Partners for $2.66 billion. This move was part of a broad effort to concentrate "on the test-and-measurement business at its historic core," and would entail termination of about 1,300 of the company's 28,000 employees. The group operated as a private company, Avago Technologies, until August 2009, when it was brought public in an IPO. After purchasing

Broadcom Corporation Broadcom Corporation was an American fabless manufacturing, fabless semiconductor company that made products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies for $37billion in 2016 and operates as a ...

in 2016, Avago changed its name to Broadcom Limited. Also in August 2005, Agilent sold its 47% stake in the

light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corre ...

manufacturer Lumileds to

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

for $1 billion. Lumileds originally started as

's optoelectronics division. Also in August 2005, Agilent announced a plan to divest its semiconductor test business, composed of both the system-on-chip and memory test market areas. Agilent listed the new company as Verigy on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

in mid-2006.

2010 onwards

In 2009, Agilent announced the closure of a subsection of its Test & Measurement division. The product lines affected included the automated optical inspection,

solder paste Solder paste is a preparation of powdered solder in sticky Flux (metallurgy), flux paste primarily used to solder surface mount components onto printed circuit boards. It is also possible to solder through-hole pin in paste components by printi ...

inspection, and automated products DXin 2004. In 2011, the company, along with the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, announced that it would be establishing the "Davis Millimeter Wave Research Center". Agilent announced it would increase its life sciences engagement through the acquisition of Halo Genomics, based in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

, Sweden, which was involved in

next-generation sequencing Massive parallel sequencing or massively parallel sequencing is any of several high-throughput approaches to DNA sequencing using the concept of massively parallel processing; it is also called next-generation sequencing (NGS) or second-generation ...

technology development. On May 17, 2012, Agilent agreed to buy Dako, a Danish cancer diagnostics company, for $2.2 billion, to expand its presence in the life sciences industry. On September 19, 2013, Agilent announced its decision to separate into two publicly traded companies: Agilent, a life sciences, diagnostics, and applied markets company, and an electronic measurement company. The life sciences company retained the Agilent name and the electronic measurement company was called

Keysight Technologies Keysight Technologies, Inc. is an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software. The name is a blend of ''key'' and ''insight''. The company was formed as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies, which inh ...

. On October 14, 2014, the company announced that it is exiting its Nuclear Magnetic Resonance business. On November 1, the formal separation of Agilent and

was completed. Agilent announced it had completed the spin-off of its electronic measurement business, Keysight Technologies. In September 2015, the company announced it would acquire Seahorse Bioscience for $235 million. On July 7, 2016, Agilent announced that they had acquired U.K. based Cobalt Light Systems, which develops and manufactures

Raman spectroscopy Raman spectroscopy () (named after physicist C. V. Raman) is a Spectroscopy, spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Ra ...

instruments, for £40 million in cash. In December the company acquired Multiplicom N.V. In January 2018, the company announced it would acquire Luxcel Biosciences, increasing the company's cell analysis portfolio. In May, Agilent acquired Lasergen, Inc. after the end of its two-year option on a prior investment. In the same month it acquired digital laboratory management company, Genohm, Ultra Scientific, provider of chemical standards and reference materials and Advanced Analytical Technologies, Inc. (AATI), provider of capillary

electrophoresis Electrophoresis is the motion of charged dispersed particles or dissolved charged molecules relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. As a rule, these are zwitterions with a positive or negative net ch ...

-based molecules for $250 million in cash. In August the company announced it would acquire glycan reagent producer, ProZyme, Inc. and South Korean instrument distributor, Young In Scientific Co. Ltd. In September Agilent acquired ACEA Biosciences for $250 million increasing the company's presence in cell analysis technologies. In August 2019, Agilent acquired US-based BioTek Instruments, a designer, manufacturer, and distributor of life science instrumentation, for $1.165 billion. On May 1, 2024, Padraig McDonnell succeeded Mike McMullen as CEO.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control 1999 establishments in California Biotechnology companies of the United States Companies based in Santa Clara, California Health care companies based in California Medical technology companies of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Hewlett-Packard Instrument-making corporations Research support companies Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Technology companies established in 1999 Health care companies established in 1999 Corporate spin-offs 1999 initial public offerings