In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biotechnology company, needed to scale up its operations to match the rapidly increasing demand for its products, specifically those used for COVID-19 sample collection and transportation. Vital to the company’s success would be the renovation of one of its existing facilities to add much-needed handling and processing capacity.
Expanding its facility in Lenexa, Kansas, would make an additional 120,000 square feet available to produce viral transport media (VTM), allowing the company to scale up production from 50,000 VTM tubes per week to more than 8 million. VTM tubes protect the integrity of COVID-19 and flu samples and help prevent contamination or false negatives.