Cisbio Bioassays

Who owns Cisbio Bioassays?

Cisbio Bioassays was owned by Argos Wityu through Argos Fund VI (2015 vintage) from 2013 to 2016, exited via Secondary.

Buyer identity available on Pro.

Hand-verified · updated 2026-06-10

About Cisbio Bioassays

Cisbio Bioassays is a French life-sciences company headquartered in Codolet, near Bagnols-sur-Ceze, that develops and markets reagents and assay kits for drug discovery and in vitro diagnostics. Its flagship technology is HTRF (Homogeneous Time-Resolved Fluorescence), a no-wash, robot-friendly detection platform pioneered in the mid-1990s that became a leading assay format in high-throughput screening, with more than 600 validated assays and reagents in its catalogue covering GPCRs, kinases, cytokines and other targets. The company generated over 85 percent of its revenue outside France and served pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers through commercial and service teams in France, the United States, China and Japan, supported by a network of specialist distributors. At the time of its ownership change it employed roughly 210 people, including close to 40 in research and development, with R&D spending exceeding 10 percent of revenue.

Ownership journey

Cisbio traces its origins to France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and its assay business passed through corporate ownership under Schering (later Bayer) and then IBA before becoming an independent company. In 2013 it was carved out through a management buyout led by Argos Wityu, investing through Argos Fund VI, in a transaction reported at around EUR 25 million that established Cisbio as a standalone, internationally focused reagents business. Argos Wityu backed management to strengthen the company's sales, marketing and research capabilities and to broaden its geographic footprint. The sponsor exited in July 2016 via a secondary transaction, and the fund is no longer a shareholder.

Under PE ownership

The 2013 buyout was structured to accelerate international expansion and commercial development of the HTRF franchise. During the holding period Cisbio recruited close to 65 people, lifting total headcount toward 210, and reinforced its research and development team while keeping R&D investment above 10 percent of revenue. Building on established operations in the United States and China, the company opened a presence in Japan and formalised its distributor network to extend reach into new markets. By the time of the sponsor's exit, Cisbio had been repositioned as an independent, export-oriented life-sciences group generating the large majority of its sales outside its French home market.