August 16, 2023
Thermo Fisher will end manufacturing and lay off 205 staff at the former Brammer Bio gene therapy facility in Alachua, Florida.
The closure of the Alachua plant is part of plans to consolidate Thermo Fisher’s viral vector services (VVS) division, part of the life sciences supplier contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business.
“We believe that leveraging our global network to provide multiple capabilities, including process development, analytical development, and clinical and commercial cGMP manufacturing, in one location will help our customers deliver gene therapies to market faster, ” a spokesperson told BioProcess Insider.
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“Therefore, as part of our viral vector services (VVS) strategy, we’re relocating the development, manufacturing and production activities that we currently perform in Alachua, Florida, to our new Plainville, Massachusetts site.”
The Plainville site opened its doors in August 2022, offering Thermo Fisher customers 300,000 square feet of gene therapy manufacturing capabilities.
The company notified the state and local officials of their intention to let go 205 employees at the Alachua plant starting from October 9. The process will continue until the end of March 2024.
The notice, signed by Kerry Buckley, Thermo Fisher’s HR director, indicates the affected employees have already been notified, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
“Decisions that impact colleagues and their families are never taken lightly,” we were told. “Colleagues who are impacted by this shift will receive job transition assistance to find new opportunities.”
Thermo Fisher added the Alachua plant through the acquisition of Brammer Bio in 2019. After the deal, the company invested $6 million in expanding gene therapy and viral vector services at the site, and doubled laboratory and warehousing capacity.
The Alachua plant is no longer listed on the company’s website. According to an archived webpage, the 95,000 square-foot facility offers process and analytical development, QC testing, and manufacturing capacity in support of clinical trials for cell and gene therapies.
Earlier this year, officials announced Thermo Fisher would be a founding sponsor for the city of Alachua’s shared lab and workspace for new biotech businesses, Momentum Labs. This will not be affected by the decision to close the manufacturing plant. “Our science and technology innovation work will remain in Alachua,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to offer viral vector services at our sites in Cambridge, Lexington & Plainville, Massachusetts as well as Seneffe and Gosselies, Belgium.”
The downsizing is part of a bigger trend.
Throughout 2023, the company has made other staff reductions across its network. A New Jersey cell therapy plant was earmarked for closure in April, while “macro-economic conditions” were blamed for job cuts at single-use technology facilities in Utah. The post-pandemic business environment has also led to Thermo Fisher chopping nearly 800 jobs at a COVID-19 diagnostics site in San Diego, California.
Meanwhile, other bioprocess vendors including Sartorius and Danaher have lowered their forecasts for 2023 halfway through the year, also citing the COVID hangover as the main reason for lower margins and sales.
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