Thermo Fisher Scientific is shutting down three San Diego facilities and laying off 218 workers — the third reduction in the local workforce this year — citing a decline in demand for COVID-19 tests and changes in the economic landscape.
Last month, the company laid off 154 workers and in February it cut 230 employees across the same three locations in San Diego County.
“Thermo Fisher invested heavily in ing the global response to COVID over the last three years. As COVID moves from pandemic to endemic, we must make adjustments to meet current market demands,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the Union-Tribune on Thursday. “As we do not forsee customer demand for testing solutions returning to previous levels, we have made the decision to discontinue sales and operations from three of our San Diego-area sites: Carroll Park Drive, Kearny Villa Road and Cornerstone.”
While the facilities will close in June — which is when the layoffs take effect — Thermo Fisher will continue to products that were manufactured at these sites for a limited time.
With these closures, the only operational sites for Thermo Fisher in the county are in Carlsbad at 5823 Newton Drive and 5781 Van Allen Way, according to property records. In July 2021, Thermo Fisher opened a 67,000-square-foot DNA manufacturing facility near its existing Carlsbad campus. These sites are not affected by the layoffs.
The global life science company is based in Waltham, Mass., and has approximately 130,000 employees globally, as of Dec. 31, 2021, according to its annual financial filing. The company’s website says its Carlsbad site has more than 2,200 employees.
Thermo Fisher is laying off 137 people at its 9440 Carroll Park Drive site, 52 people at 6190 Cornerstone Court and 29 people at 9600 Kearny Villa Road, according to the WARN notice filed with the state. All employees at these facilities are impacted as the company reported that it “is reorganizing and will be ceasing its rapid diagnostic testing operations at its genetic sciences facilities.”
On Wednesday, the company reported that in the first quarter of 2023, overall revenue was $10.71 billion — a 9 percent decline compared to last year. COVID-19 testing revenue was $140 million.
This time last year, Thermo Fisher’s COVID-19 testing revenue was $1.68 billion.
Marc Casper, president and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific, said during Wednesday’s call with investors that “pandemic-related activity performed as we had expected during the quarter.”
Thermo-Fisher is among other companies in the life science industry dealing with the aftershocks of a drop-off in demand for COVID-19 testing and the end of the pandemic state of emergency, which initially fueled huge growth through government funding.
During the pandemic, Thermo Fisher expanded its local capacity to produce COVID-19 testing solutions by acquiring San Diego-based Mesa Biotech for $450 million.
Thermo Fisher’s Cornerstone Court site and its Carroll Park Drive facility are associated with the COVID-19 test maker Mesa Biotech, according to property records.
Staff writer Phillip Molnar contributed to this report.
