Business with customers in the pharma and biotech sector was a key revenue driver, said Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper, adding that this business grew by 25% over the year.
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Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Massachusetts, reported that its revenue from 2021 grew by 22%, landing the company $39.21 billion. Thermo Fisher attributes the growth to organic revenue from its core businesses, as well as acquiring research organization PPD and its COVID-19 response efforts. Thermo Fisher reports that $2.45 billion of its 2021 revenue is related to the pandemic response.
Overall, business with customers in the pharma and biotech sector was a key revenue driver, said Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper, adding that this business grew by 25% over the year.
In April 2021, Thermo Fisher entered a definitive agreement to acquire PPD, a global contract research organization that focuses on drug development. Its therapeutic expertise spans large disease markets including hematologic oncology and immunological oncology with research and development innovation in cell and gene therapies. The acquisition of PPD was completed in December 2021, which is expected to contribute $1.50 to Thermo Fisher’s adjusted earnings per share in 2022. Thermo Fisher anticipates offering a comprehensive suite of world-class services in clinical development, including scientific discovery, safety and efficacy assessments, health care outcomes, and clinical trial logistics in their agreement with PPD.
Thermo Fisher has also led the way in the COVID-19 response with its real-time PCR-based COVID-19 test that can diagnose the virus in less than three hours. The Taq-Path COVID-19 test kit received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March 2020 and was rapidly adopted worldwide for its accurate technology. Thermo Fisher is responsible for more than 50% of worldwide testing and is the leading single-source supplier in COVID-19 testing. The test became more prevalent and needed as Omicron began to surge in late 2021 and the company announced in November that the kit was able to accurately detect Omicron variants.
In partnership with Color Health, a health technology company dedicated to public health, Thermo Fisher launched a program for K-12 students called ReadyCheckGo. The program enables the screening and testing of faculty, staff and students in primary education settings using the PCR test to limit the risk of outbreaks in schools. In December 2021, the companies reported the program was operational in school districts in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin as well as Chicago Public Schools.
Seeing an increased demand for its products, Thermo Fisher recently completed a facility expansion in Lenexa, Kansas. The expansion was completed in record time and renovated the currently existing facility to add handling and processing capacity for COVID-19 tests. The company added 120,000 square feet to the facility to produce viral transport media and allow it to scale up production from 50,000 viral media tubes per week to more than eight million. The tubes help to protect the integrity of COVID-19 samples to prevent contamination and false negatives.
Thermo Fisher also completed an acquisition of PeproTech in December 2021. PeproTech develops recombinant proteins, including cytokines and growth factors which are used in the development and manufacturing of cell and gene therapies and in wide cell culture applications related to cellular research.
Thermo Fisher stated that with the new acquisition it will be able to offer customers significant benefits through an integrated offering and partner with customers to drive the evolution of marketed cell and gene therapies.
