It’s been four years since Thermo Fisher Scientific opened its 300,000-square-foot viral vector manufacturing facility in Plainville, Massachusetts. Since then, the company has steadily added capabilities to the site, which now provides viral vector, biologics, and sterile fill-finish manufacturing in one U.S. location.

At the same time, Plainville has not been without its hiccups including layoffs last year. Still, in April 2026, Thermo Fisher opened its flagship U.S. Bioprocess Design Center in Plainville, a 4,000-square-foot facility where the company plans to work side by side with pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers to accelerate drug development and optimize manufacturing processes, enabling initial bioproduction workflow validation.

“Drug development increasingly depends on decisions and capabilities that span traditional boundaries, from development and manufacturing to clinical supply and clinical execution,” Mike Shafer, Thermo Fisher’s executive vice president and president of biopharma services, said in a statement. “We’re investing not only in capacity, but in how those capabilities connect. That gives our customers greater continuity as they navigate critical transitions, scale their programs, and prepare for commercialization.”

Plainville’s latest additions include new bioprocessing equipment, expanding U.S.-based cGMP monoclonal antibody production capacity, as well as sterile drug product lines to support the development and commercial manufacturing of vials and prefilled syringes.

Thermo Fisher made the announcement at this week’s CPHI conference in Milan, Italy, outlining other infrastructure investments across the company’s service offerings. The company is also expanding sterile drug product lines at sites in Italy including Ferentino and Monza, as well as fill-finish and drug-device capabilities in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

According to the announcement, Thermo Fisher is investing in scalable technologies to support drug-device combination product assembly, labeling, and packaging, enabling “fit-for-phase automation, supporting programs from early clinical development through commercialization as volume and complexity increase.”

Partnerships provide access to technology

Under a strategic, non-exclusive collaboration announced in March, Thermo Fisher and SHL Medical are providing integrated support for SHL’s Molly autoinjector platform at Thermo Fisher’s Ridgefield site for device final assembly, packaging, and distribution.

The Thermo Fisher-SHL teaming is meant to simplify development and productiion for pharma and biotech customers, providing a streamlined path from drug product manufacturing through commercialization.

Last year, Thermo Fisher acquired Sanofi’s sterile drug product manufacturing facility in Ridgefield which specializes in fill‑finish and packaging of aseptic injectable medications, expanding the company’s U.S. capacity for biopharma customers’ reshoring efforts. The company’s other domestic fill-finish site is in Greenville, North Carolina.

According to Thermo Fisher, it is investing in areas across the value chain to ensure its customers continue to enjoy the benefits of a global network with local access.

“Investments across oral solid dose, sterile drug product, biologics, and clinical supply are expanding development and manufacturing capabilities globally, including new small molecule technologies through Thermo Fisher’s collaboration with AustinPx,” according to this week’s announcement.

In June, AustinPx partnered with Thermo Fisher for the installation of AustinPx’s KinetiSol equipment at Thermo Fisher’s Bend, Oregon and Cincinnati, Ohio oral solid drug manufacturing sites. KinetiSol is a solvent-free, fusion-based amorphous solid dispersion technology designed to enhance the bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs while streamlining scalability and enabling more environmental and economic sustainability.

At the time, Thermo Fisher said the addition of a KinetiSol compounder at its Cincinnati facility — its largest U.S. oral-solid dose production site — will further broaden the offering of late-phase and commercial manufacturing capabilities. The site is Thermo Fisher’s “Center of Excellence” for controlled and sustained release of solid oral dosage forms, including liquid-filled hard-shell capsules, osmotic release multi-layer tablets, active coating, hot melt extrusion, and pelletization.