Ogden Thermo Fisher plant idled, workers apparently let go
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- The Thermo Fisher Scientific facility inside Business Depot Ogden, photographed Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Operations have ceased at the facility, formally inaugurated in 2022.
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- Numerous leaders assist with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, for a new Thermo Fisher Scientific facility in Ogden. Pictured, from left, are Utah Sen. John Johnson, Ogden City Council members Angela Choberka and Ken Richey, U.S. Rep. Blake Moore, Ogden City Councilperson Luis Lopez, Thermo Fisher executive Chad Dale, U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, Thermo Fisher executive Paul Parker, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee and Thermo Fisher executive Mitch Kennedy.
OGDEN — A little more than a year ago, U.S. Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, among others, traveled to Ogden to help Thermo Fisher Scientific inaugurate its new state-of-the-art operation here.
The firm pumped $44 million into its 55,000-square-foot site at Business Depot Ogden and officials spoke of the firm’s coming as a big boost to Utah’s biotech sector.
A little over a year after that April 20, 2022, ceremony, though, the facility seems to be largely vacant. Few cars populated the lot outside the facility at 1020 W. 400 North on Wednesday and the firm issued a statement saying operations had been halted in Ogden, with workers apparently let go.
“To further optimize resources across our global manufacturing network, we have made the decision to adjust staffing levels at our bioprocessing sites in Utah, including temporarily ceasing operations at our Ogden, Utah, site,” a Thermo Fisher spokesperson said in a statement.
The statement didn’t specifically say workers had been laid off and company reps didn’t respond to a follow-up query seeking additional information. Around 300 people were already working in Ogden when the new facility here was inaugurated last year, with another 150 posts yet to be filled.
However, the statement said the firm is helping employees find other jobs, even if Ogden operations are only “temporarily” halted. “Decisions that impact colleagues and their families are never taken lightly. All impacted colleagues will receive job transition support to aid them in finding new opportunities,” said the spokesperson.
The language in the statement echoes wording in a statement to WHQR radio in Wilmington, North Carolina, about apparent layoffs at Thermo Fisher’s PPD operation there, acquired by the Waltham, Massachusetts, biotech giant in early 2022. “Thermo Fisher Scientific continuously evaluates its global operations to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness in meeting our customers’ needs,” reads the message to WHQR, echoing language in the message to the Standard-Examiner.
At the same time, the Herald Journal newspaper in Logan reported last February that Thermo Fisher had laid off as many as 90 workers from its operations in the area, citing an impacted worker.
Thermo Fisher generates some $40 billion in revenue a year, according to its website, and it’s not clear what the Utah developments mean in the grander scheme of the global firm’s operations.
BioProcess International, a trade publication serving the “global industrial biotherapeutic community,” reported last March on planned layoffs at Thermo Fisher’s Utah operations.
In parsing the possible reasons, the publication noted “a ‘swift normalization of demand’ (for biotech sector products) on the back of two years of unprecedented pandemic-related growth.” It went on, citing Thermo Fisher Chief Executive Officer Marc Casper as saying “‘more normalization’ in 2023 was to come as the COVID tailwind peters out.”
Indeed, the company said last year that the Ogden operation was part of a $650 million investment “to help ensure flexible, scalable and reliable bioprocessing production capacity exists for critical materials used in developing new and existing biologics and vaccines, including for COVID-19.”
In addition to Lee and Romney, U.S. Rep. Blake Moore and other Ogden leaders were in attendance at last year’s ceremony, along with media from around the state. Officials spoke optimistically of things to come.
“It’s not every day or every place that you can come to work to be part of saving lives. Ogden, you are now delivering life-saving therapies to the world, so thank you,” Caleb Jones said at last year’s ceremony. He was the Ogden site leader and an associate director of manufacturing operations in bio-production for Thermo Fisher.