Thermo Fisher to shut Asheville plant and lay off its 421 workers. Here’s why.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Plant will cease operations by end of 2026; layoffs continue into 2027.
- Company will phase out operations and transfer product lines to U.S. sites.
- Weaverville loses largest employer; town faces economic and workforce impact.
A global life sciences manufacturer with more than a dozen sites in North Carolina plans to shut its facility north of Asheville over the next two years, laying off more than 400 workers.
In a Jan. 8 letter to the N.C. Department of Commerce and Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, Thermo Fisher Scientific said it expects 421 employees will lose their jobs as the company winds down its plant in the Western North Carolina town of Weaverville. Thermo Fisher intends to make initial layoffs on Dec. 31 and additional cuts through the end of 2027.
Thermo Fisher did not give a reason for closing this site in its WARN letter, which businesses must send North Carolina officials at least 60 days before conducting mass layoffs.
“There are times when we must evolve our organization to remain in line with current customer demands,” the company’s media team wrote in a separate email Wednesday to The News & Observer. “Operations currently performed at our Asheville site will be phased out by the end of 2026, with certain product lines transferring to U.S. facilities.”
Weaverville Mayor Dee Lawrence called Thermo Fisher both the biggest employer and taxpayer in the mountainous town of 4,700. “We don’t know yet exactly what the status of their facility is going to be,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday. “As you probably know, it’s quite large.”
During the height of the pandemic, Thermo Fisher said this Weaverville factory underwent “the largest volume ramp-up in its history” as the plant each day produced hundreds of ultra-low-temperature freezers to store COVID-19 vaccines. The company added 200 workers to the facility in 2021 to respond to surging demand.
Thermo Fisher leans on NC manufacturing sites
Headquartered near Boston, Thermo Fisher is one of the largest laboratory equipment suppliers. It ranks as the No. 71 most-valuable publicly traded company in the world with a market capitalization of approximately $234 billion. It employs more than 26,000 people across the U.S. and Canada, of which North Carolina is a prominent worker base.
This summer, Thermo Fisher reported having around 7,800 employees across 13 North Carolina sites, including in Durham, Raleigh, High Point and Greenville. In 2021, the company grew its North Carolina footprint by acquiring the Wilmington contract research organization PPD Inc. Then, three years later, Thermo Fisher opened a 375,000-square-foot facility in Mebane to produce precision pipette tips and lab kits.
Thermo Fisher has operated in the Asheville area since 2005 when Thermo Electron Corp. paid $833.5 million to acquire a division of Charlotte’s SPX Corp. called Kendro Laboratory Products. Kendro had a facility in Weaverville, 10 miles north of Asheville, where it made ultra-low-temperature freezers and other laboratory products. The next year, Thermo Electron purchased Fisher Scientific International and combined their names.
In its email to The N&O, Thermo Fisher stated its Asheville closure “does not reflect a strategic change in our commitment to U.S. manufacturing or our substantial investment in North Carolina.”
