Another manufacturing site bites the dust. Thermo Fisher Scientific plans to shut the doors to its Princeton, New Jersey, plant, leaving 113 workers out of a job.
The layoffs were listed on a New Jersey worker adjustment and retraining notification act notice in March. The cuts will be effective June 16, the filing (PDF) said.
The site offered biologics development and cell therapy services, a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma over email. It's being closed to “remain in line with current manufacturing volume demands,” the spokesperson added.
“Decisions that impact colleagues and their families are never taken lightly,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company will “do everything possible” to support the affected employees.
Thermo Fisher Scientific “continuously evaluates its global operations” to improve efficiency, and the Princeton site closure fell in line with the “ongoing effort,” the spokesperson said.
The move comes in sharp contrast to the company's expansion surge in recent years. Last August, the company opened a $105 million single-use technology plant in Lebanon, Tennessee. The 400,000-square-foot facility more than doubled Thermo Fisher’s capabilities to produce bioprocessing materials. At the time of the opening, the site employed 300 people and planned to add 1,100 more.
Weeks before that opening, the company completed a $76 million expansion of its dry powder media manufacturing plant in Grand Island, New York.
Across the industry, a few manufacturing plants have seen closures in recent months. Last month, the world’s first commercial biologics plant, Genentech’s South San Francisco production facility, announced its upcoming closure. Instead of mass layoffs, most site employees have transitioned to a new clinical supply center in the city, an executive at the plant told Fierce Pharma.
Meanwhile, bankrupt Akron Pharma cut the lights in February, abruptly shutting down all of its U.S. sites and laying off its entire workforce. The move quickly put a strain on supplies of popular asthma medicine liquid albuterol.