Thermo Fisher to Upgrade Bioprocessing Operations
Thermo Fisher Scientific plans to spend more than $600 million to upgrade its bioprocessing operations up to 2022. It aims to more than double current manufacturing capacity and support biopharma customers as they ramp up to meet short-term demands related to COVID-19. Another goal is to support its own long-term efforts to develop new vaccines and biologics for other conditions.
The company said the effort will require hiring at least 1,500 new employees as it expands manufacturing across the Americas, Europe and Asia, as well as investments to boost supplies of single-use technologies, purification resins and cell culture media.
To increase supply chain resiliency, Thermo Fisher's single-use technologies business is expanding capacity at sites in Logan, Utah, and Millersburg, Pennsylvania, in the US and at Cramlington in the UK, as well as in Singapore and at Suzhou, China. In Santa Clara, California, it plans to add bioprocessing equipment and automation capacity.
The US diagnostic specialist will also expand its POROS resin manufacturing site in Bedford, Massachusetts, and open a new facility at Chelmsford in the same state. The triple investment is designed to reinforce its purification network that focuses on production of process-scale chromatography resins for a variety of applications, including vaccines and gene therapies.
Investments to expand capacity at sites in Grand Island, New York, Miami, Florida, and Inchinnan, Scotland, are aimed at increasing production of Gibco cell culture media, supplements and process liquids as well as the manufacturing of customer-owned proprietary media formulations.
Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist
