The company was founded in 1971 as a laboratory testing service for detecting microbial contamination of water sources, the environment, and food products, but in 1976, they began manufacturing and selling lyophilized (freeze-dried) microorganisms. Today, they offer a wide range of microorganism strains in unique, easy-to-use configurations for quality control testing, as well as assay services and consulting for microbiology, molecular diagnostics, and virology. In 2008, Microbiologics acquired Gibson Laboratories, which provides a full array of microbiology supplies including stains and reagents, rapid test kits, QC controls, lyophilized bacterial and fungal cultures, fungal serology, and custom manufactured products.