Private company

Cole-Parmer

Medical and environmental products company

Cole-Parmer Instrument Company, is a Company founded in 1955. The company serves professionals in biopharma, environmental and life sciences.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1955Founded1

Cole-Parmer Instrument Company, is a Company founded in 1955. The company serves professionals in biopharma, environmental and life sciences.2

The story

The company was founded by Jerry Cole and John Parmer in 1955 and took up shop in a 1,200-square-foot (110 m2) loft on West Illinois Street in downtown Chicago. In the 1960s, Cole-Parmer acquired Masterflex peristaltic pumps, followed shortly by the purchases of Gilmont Instruments and Manostat Pumps.

They were acquired by Fisher Scientific, now Thermo-Fisher Scientific, in 2001.

On July 17, 2014, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. agreed to sell one of its lab units, Cole-Parmer, to private-equity firm GTCR for $480 million in cash. The company has previously said its $13.6 billion acquisition of Life Technologies Corp. would allow it to cut costs while gaining from next-generation genetic-sequencing machines. It has also sought to expand in Asia-Pacific markets.

In 2025, Cole-Parmer was sold to Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.'s private equity group and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec for a reported 1.4 billion dollars (USD).

From Wikipedia’s article on Cole-Parmer, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

Cole-Parmer offers a variety of lab products. Many of their products are related to research and process. Cole-Parmer also offers calibration and instrument repairs through InnoCal.

From Wikipedia’s article on Cole-Parmer, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1955Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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