Our History

Harvard Bioscience is a global developer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of specialized products, primarily apparatus and scientific instruments used to advance life science research and regenerative medicine.

It started in the basement... Harvard⁽¹⁾ Bioscience was founded in 1901. Frustrated by the poor quality of equipment then available, Dr. William T. Porter began manufacturing his own high quality physiology teaching equipment in the basement of the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Porter went on to found the American Journal of Physiology and became one of the leading physiologists of his day. His equipment gained an enviable reputation for quality and reliability and began to be known simply as the Harvard Apparatus. The name stuck.

In the early 1980's the company started using the name Harvard Bioscience and in 2000 we officially changed the name of the company to Harvard Bioscience, Inc. In 1996 the current management team took over the company and expanded the product offering and improved growth and profitability. We completed our initial public offering in December 2000.

Both we and physiology have come a long way in 100 years. Today we are a leading worldwide supplier of scientific instruments used to improve life science research. Our products are used across a broad spectrum of both well established and cutting edge applications and are used by the world’s top pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Our products are typically highly specialized for particular research applications in molecular, cellular, and physiology research. Our products are typically well-established in fairly mature markets with good, but not spectacular, growth rates.

Our brands are typically well-established names that convey quality, consistency and reassurance to scientists concerned about getting the highest quality data from their research. Our brands are often leaders in their niches. These brands include: Harvard Apparatus, Biochrom, Hoefer, Panlab, Warner Instruments, KD Scientific, Hugo Sachs Elektronik, BTX, and Denville Scientific.

Our distribution channels are as well-established as our brands and are intended to give us broad access to scientists across the globe. We sell our products to thousands of researchers in over 100 countries through our full-line catalog (and various other specialty catalogs), our websites and through distributors, including GE Healthcare, Thermo Fisher Scientific and VWR.

(1) Harvard is a registered trademark of Harvard University. The marks Harvard Apparatus and Harvard Bioscience are being used pursuant to a license agreement between Harvard University and Harvard Bioscience, Inc.