Covance - History

History

Covance's origins go back to 1968, when Environmental Sciences Corporation – which manufactured equipment related to laboratory animals – opened for business in the basement of a former grocery store in Seattle, Washington. In 1972 it purchased and took the name of Hazleton Laboratories, a contract laboratory that conducted toxicology testing. In 1977 Corning Glass Works purchased a stake in Hazleton. According to material on the Funding Universe website, by 1982 Hazleton had become the largest independent biological testing company and life sciences laboratory in the United States, as well as the largest manufacturer of laboratory equipment in the world. The company carried out toxicology tests on animals of drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, and industrial chemicals, and bred rhesus monkeys and beagles for its own labs, as well as for chemical and drug companies, hospitals, universities and government agencies. Funding Universe writes that it also offered chemical analysis of new compound products for various industries, tested chemicals for gene mutations, and carried out research with monoclonal antibodies.

In 1989 Corning Glass Works purchased G.H. Besselaar Associates, which conducted clinical trials to help drugs gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and Hazleton purchased Microtest Ltd., a molecular toxicology center in York, England. Corning Glass Works then changed its name to Corning, and created Corning Lab Services, which included Besselaar and Hazelton. In 1991 and 1992 Corning Lab Services acquired SciCor and Philadelphia Association of Clinical Trials; in 1993 Hazleton, Besselaar, and SciCor were combined, becoming Corning Pharmaceutical Services, then Corning Life Sciences. In April 1996 Corning spun off its lab testing and pharmaceutical services, creating two new companies, Quest Diagnostics and Covance, the latter with a head office in Princeton, New Jersey. By 1998 Covance had net revenues of $731.6 million and a net income of $48.6 million. By 2012 it had annual revenues of over $2 billion, and over 11,000 employees in more than 60 countries.