• Inotiv pharmacy firm reports suffering a ransomware attack
  • It is currently restoring some of its services
  • Ransomware operators Qilin claimed responsibility

Inotiv, an American pharmaceutical and biotech company, has confirmed it has suffered a ransomware attack which forced it to shut down parts of its IT infrastructure.

In a report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said it spotted the attack on August 8, 2025.

The initial investigation determined that someone broke in and encrypted “certain parts” of its systems. Inotiv then did the usual, locking the network down, notifying the police, and bringing in third-party security experts for forensic analysis and security improvements.

Qilin takes the blame

However, the attack seems to have caused noticeable damage:

“The cybersecurity incident has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, disruptions to certain business operations of the company,” Inovit said in the filing. “The incident has temporarily impacted the availability of and access to certain of the company’s networks and systems, including access to portions of internal data storage and certain internal business applications.”

As it works on restoring the services and bringing its systems back online, Inotiv said it transitioned impacted operations to “offline alternatives” to minimize the impact. There is no deadline for this and Inotiv doesn’t seem to know when it might get back to business as usual.

Inotiv is still investigating the case and did not discuss the identity of the attackers. However, BleepingComputer found a ransomware group called Qilin claimed responsibility, listing Inotiv on its data leak site, saying they stole around 162,000 files which are 176GB in size.

Samples of the stolen files were also posted on the site, but at press time, their authenticity has not yet been confirmed.

Inotiv is a US-based contract research organization (CRO) that provides nonclinical and analytical drug discovery and development services for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. It has around 2,000 specialists and an annual revenue of around $500 million.

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