Thermo Fisher Scientific is investing more than US$ 140 million (approximately Rs 1000 crore) to expand its laboratory plastics consumables production further to support significant global demand for Covid-19 testing, as well as development and manufacturing of therapies and vaccines.
“Early in the pandemic, we quickly joined forces with governments, public health agencies and industry to increase capacity across our laboratory plastics production facilities and address the growing COVID-19 threat,” said Fred Lowery, senior vice president and president of Life Sciences Solutions and Laboratory Products at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
“However, demand quickly exceeded those early expansion projects, so we began a series of additional expansions to meet the growing needs of our customers. These investments, along with many others across the company, will ensure that our customers have the supplies they need to continue meeting the unprecedented demands of the Covid-19 response.”
Creating over 1,000 jobs
The rapid increase in production related to Covid-19 testing, and development and manufacturing of therapies and vaccines, has created historic demand for laboratory plastics, including pipette and automation tips, storage tubes and plates, transfer pipettes, and packaging vials and bottles. To support these needs, Thermo Fisher is creating more than 1,000 jobs across manufacturing sites globally, increasing automation capabilities and optimizing warehouse and sterilization capacity to improve supply chain agility.
At present, the company will expand its sites in Rochester of New York, Petaluma of California, Monterrey, Tijuana of Mexico, and Joensuu of Finland.
Thermo Fisher offers an extensive range of laboratory plastics, including Thermo Scientific Nalgene and Nunc plasticware and the Thermo Scientific Manual and Electronic Pipetting Systems. From bottles, beakers, funnels, and tubes to pipettes, tips, and diagnostic plates, Thermo Fisher consumables are said to support critical Covid-19 work globally. They include sample collection vials for diagnostic test kits, pipettes for test processing, lab essentials for research into therapies and vaccines, lab plastics to support clinical and epidemiological studies, and materials for vaccine production and biobanking.
