Taconic Biosciences

Company overview

History

• 1949 – Robert Phelan began shipping mice from his garage in Canajoharie, NY.
• 1952 – Taconic Farms is officially founded in Germantown, NY.
• 1955 – Robert dies, leaving the company to his wife, Sally, and sons, Joseph, Richard, and Samuel.
• 1963 – Contracted to provide BDF1 mice for the National Cancer Institute.
• 1969 – Began offering rats, including Sprague Dawley, one of the most popular breeds of laboratory rat
• 1969 – Taconic was the first breeder to receive full accreditation from the American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animals
• 1970 – Contracted to provide the National Institutes of Health with Sprague Dawley rats. They continue to supply NCI with BDF1 mice.
• 1975 – Began offering the SHR hypertensive rat and the WKY control strain.
• 1980 – Taconic developed the first Isolated Barrier Unit system, a method of housing rodents in a pathogen-free environment.
• 1982 – Began offering Fischer 344 rats and asthmatic rats from Merck-Frost, Montreal, to the product offerings.
• 1985 – Contracted to supply MPF and germ-free animals for the NASA space shuttle missions.
• 1985 – Started producing BALB/c mice.
• 1991 – Became the first commercial provider of the C.B-17 SCID mouse model.
• 1994 – Contracted with National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease to maintain a repository of inbred, congenic, and transgenic mice.
• 2002 – Expanded business to Europe
• 2014 – Name changed from Taconic Farms to Taconic Biosciences
• 2019 – Acquired by H.I.G. Capital

  Acquisitions

• 2001 – Anmed Laboratories
• 2002 – M&B Breeding
• 2009 – Xenogen Biosciences

  Leadership