Argenta Discovery was founded on 2 August 2000 as a spin-out from Aventis' UK Research Centre. On 7 October 2004, Argenta merged with Etiologics Limited, a respiratory research group that was spun out of Bayer Pharmaceuticals UK in November 2002. On 2nd February 2010, the service operations of Argenta Discovery were acquired by Galapagos and the company rebranded as "Argenta".