F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. was founded in 1896 in Basel, Switzerland by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, a pioneering entrepreneur in branded pharmaceutical products.

From the very beginning, Fritz Hoffmann attached great importance to product information as the link between the pharmaceutical manufacturer and doctors, pharmacists and patients. He was among the first to recognize that the industrial manufacture of standardized medicines would be a major advance in the fight against disease.

Shortly after the founding of the company, affiliates were opened in Germany, Italy, France, the United States, Great Britain and Russia.

Roche Canada was founded in 1931 in Montreal, Quebec. In the 1980s, Roche relocated its head office to Toronto, eventually moving operations to a brand new facility in Mississauga in 1990. In the late 1990s, Laval, Quebec became the new home for Roche's Diagnostics Division.